The trailer of the movie was pretty interesting and it seemed like a "hatke" movie , as most of the movies associated with Shoojit Sircar are (Yahaan, Madras Cafe , Piku, and Vicky Donor). Although it's directed by debutant Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Shoojit Sirkar contributes to the story. Plus it has Amitabh Bachchan in the lead. Are these reasons enough good enough or are there way better reasons to watch this one ? Read on to find out.
To answer the above question in short: You MUST watch it. For the rest read on.
For the uninitiated let's start with the plot. Three girls (played by Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang) meet three boys meet at a rock concert after which they end up in a room where one of the boys (played by Angad Bedi) tries to Taapsee. Taapsee in self defense hits Angad and he gets seriously injured. Angad being a close acquaintance of influential politician files a case against her when these girls approach the police. What follows is an intense courtroom drama where Amitabh Bachchan and Piyush Mishra try to defend their clients.
First and foremost it's a no nonsense film. There is no time wasted in building the plot. There is no side track. There is no romantic angle. There is no flashback scene, where the lead actors song and dance around. There are no songs which randomly pop-in to annoy you. There is no filler comedian who would make the courtroom proceedings funny. Every scene, every frame and every word uttered by the character has relevance to the movie. And in Mr Bachchan's case even his silence is relevant (more on that later). The movie dives into the plot right from the start. I like the way the narrative moves forward without actual showing what happened , the director builds up the sequence of events as we move forward. He does show what happened and for that you need to sit through the end credits of the movie. Another reason to wait till the end is this poem narrated by Amitabh Bachchan.
Amitabh Bachchan is the star of the film. He gets better with every movie and never fails to surprise you. In the movie Piku, his face has so many expressions in every frame and here he says so much with his blank look throughout. No wonder he is the undoubted Shahenshah! His courtroom antics are stellar. The scene where he cross questions a lady police officer is superb., reminds me of the movie Aitraaz where Paresh Rawal questions Akshay Kumar. But the difference is that Paresh Rawal plays a chirpy lawyer while Amitabh's character has this calmness about him. He gets the best dialogues of the movie and does full justice to them. The best one being , " Humare yaha ghari ki sui ladki ka character decide karti hai" ( The hands of the clock decide the character of a girl in India). The rest of the cast is good as well. The only one thing I wished was different was Piyush Mishra's casting. I am huge fan of his narration in Gangs of Wasseypur but he is becoming way too monotonous with his diction in the recent movies.
Through dialogues the director puts forth the condition of girls and women in India, the way the society judges them, stereotypes them. The title is also probably a reference to the same stereotyping. Also he talks about how the North-east Indian community is discriminated in most parts of the country. I liked one particular scene, where during the courtroom proceedings Piyush Mishra makes Tapsee uncomfortable about something she said and when she hesitates to talk, her father is seen leaving his seat.
The movie is a brave attempt by the director, where he puts forth his point unadulterated. Otherwise Indian movie makers have to often sugar coat the message they want to convey with stars, songs and all kind of melodrama. They have to put in all the masala to make the film "commercially viable" they say. I believe if a movie has good and meaningful content, that would itself make it commercially viable. And that's what Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury does with Pink! Kudos to the director and his team!
In short this is A MUST watch film!
