Plot Summary – Amrita, a young woman, leads a content life with her husband, Vikram. However, their happiness is shattered when he slaps her at an office party causing her to file for a divorce.

Language – Hindi

Where to Watch – Amazon Prime Video (English subtitles available)

★★★★★ 

Watched on 25 Jul 2021

Thappad is an absolutely brilliant examination of patriarchy and the social constructs of India through multiple interconnected narratives which all stem from one incident. This is an extremely poignant film in the fact that it is unflinching about its message and very few Indian films, especially mainstream ones like this will be brave enough to tackle it with this much nuance and detail. I was particularly impressed by the diversity in perspectives in terms of power dynamics and wealth, to show that the corrupted values ingrained in our everyday lives are applicable irrespective of how educated we think we are. As a person coming to terms with his own participation in our patriarchy and my future roles in my family, I look to films like this for direction on how to be a better person. This is to our culture what Marriage Story was to American culture. In India, a marriage is a marriage of two families which makes ending that marriage much harder cause there is pressure on both sides to make it work but that pressure is never on the male. It takes very long for the typical Indian male to be called out by his “equal” or “superior” in terms of position and wealth to realize slowly that he is in the wrong. The cinematography is absolutely brilliant in the way it conveys the mood. In an instant, the colour palette changes from bright and warm colours to cool and dull ones and we see the palette slowly brighten up as the film progresses. The score is absolutely engulfing and helps set the tone and mood so effectively. A huge criticism of this film I saw was that it was slow and drawn out but I feel that was intentional to show the passage of time and the length of this emotionally draining process and it does that very effectively while still being very engaging. The performances were absolutely brilliant, usually, I single out one actor but nearly every single one gave the performance of their life out of which Tapsee Pannu stole the show with an amazing monologue in the end. I am so so impressed by this film and every Indian, especially boys should watch this film.