Patna Shuklla Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
As I started watching this film, my expectations were low. There had been little to no conversations around this title, and the first few sequences as I sat down to watch were stereotypes, I could be watching a toothpaste ad, or a video selling me paushtic genhun se bana aata for all the novelty there was on display.
But by the end of it, my loosely held opinion had altered, I’d made up my mind to tell my family to watch this film and was personally investing in decoding what the film was getting at.
Karte hain detail mein chat, aao.
Written by Sameer Arora, Farid Khan and director Vivek Budakoti himself, Patna Shukla tells the story of a lower court lawyer in modern day Patna, her name is Tanvi but due to her heavily publicized involvement in one case, she comes to be known as Patna Shukla. The case at hand is that of a college girl, joh convinced hai uske exam sheet ke saath dhokha hua hai, and despite recounting, she wants to press charges against the university. What seems like a simple scenario of error in assessing her paper properly, turns out to be a larger conspiracy, a scam even, involving a prominent politician, poised to win the next elections.
The film, like last week’s Ae Watan Mere Watan, is not simply limited to the time and place it isset in, and the people it is about. Patna Shukla reads like a larger commentary on how rules of law are prone to hijacking by those with any amount of power, in all levels of society, highlighting the importance of an unbiased judiciary is, to ensure we don’t further devolve into chaos.
Like I said above, when the movie opened, and there were run of the mill se bhi zyada run of mill scenes and sequences of Tanvi being the perfect wife, mother, and lady, BEFORE she gets to her workplace, and wahaan bhi the first thing she does is offer everyone homemade laddoos, I near about gave up, resigned to yet another tale of how a woman is absolutely extraordinary and because of her exemplary achievements she is worthy of our praise.
But gradually, this plasticky veneer sort of wore off, and you realize the film is actually trying to go OUT of its way to tell you how common the protagonist is. She isn’t exceptionally good at her job either, just about average. And through her, the film is asking its audience, just HOW perfect do you expect women to be, to give them the same amount of respect you give men automatically?
I’ve searched quite a bit, and help me out here in the comments, but I couldn’t find any recent promotional interviews of the film’s lead actor Raveena Tandon with the director. I went on this unusual hunt to understand better the sync between actor and filmmakers, because for the most part, the assignment isn’t understood, or at the very least altered and mutated to the point where it’s lost faith in itself, and doesn’t quite stick the landing.
I’m fascinated with how the protagonist of this film has been written. The writer wants you to understand and KNOW how much Tanvi Shukla didn’t want to be an activist, and to what extent she had herself convinced ki if she wanted to go out for dinner but her husband’s idea of a treat is her cooking instead of the cook, and that’s a sweet thing, gaslighting ka level kya hai iss household mein. Micro-aggression upon micro-aggression pile up, and you’re almost anticipating a Neeraj Ghaywan ki short film Juice like scenario and that the wife will comes storming out the kitchen one day when she’s had enough, suppressed emotions finally erupting.
In Patna Shuklla, that moment doesn’t come, because it’s not designed to be there. It’s a wildly bold choice to move away from the oft-repeated simplistic solution of “I either have to chose my work or my family”. Instead they’re creating a protagonist for whom this conflict doesn’t exist. She doesn’t have lofty ambitions, but she has dignity, and her own ways of questioning when she’s not treated with the respect she knows she deserves.
I know at this point this is feeling like a study of Tanvi Shukla more than a review of the film, par yaar koi bhi film ho hindi cinema ki, about a woman beating the odds, she nearly always has to be some sort of superhuman, up on a pedestal. Stories like Bhakshak, Ae Watan Mere Watan, are well-intentioned, but its films like this, Laapata Ladies, Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby if you look outside a bit, that bring you women who aren’t big decision-makers, who aren’t fighters, and yet are as much worthy of taking the time they need to realize they very much deserve the space they occupy in this world.
The big issue I have with Patna Shuklla though, like I said abhi also, is Raveena Tandon’s performance, which doesn’t quite ALLOW Tanvi to come through. We see faint traces of the very unassuming woman she was designed to be, and the flashes of her you do witness are sort of drowned under a thick layer of Bollywood melodrama this character did not require. Tanvi is always ready with the perfect dialogue, put together in the face of adversity, talking emphatically to her son like she’s his favorite aunt meeting him after a month.
How Tanvi’s husband Mr. Shukla, played by Manav Vij is written, is going to be the next part of this essay. I’m kidding, itna deep nahi hai, par again, to credit the writing here, this here is a man who doesn’t NEED that one epically underlined shouting match to realise ki haan meri biwi ka bhi career utna zaroori hai jitna mera. Rather THIS man, quietly realizes the error of his ways, and quietly goes about fixing both the relationship and his contribution to systems that perpetuate inequality, in a way you rarely see actualized in cinema. When the oppression isn’t always loud, course correction can be subtle too. A husband who unlearns and learns on his own is as rare as a film in present-day Bollywood calling out social evils like “bulldozer justice” as a nefarious power movie.
WHICH THIS FILM ALSO DOES. I swear watching Patna Shuklla was exasperating. On the one hand, the constant underlay forcing me to feel the feels is grating and outdated, but on the other hand, an illustration of how aajkal ke neta “illegal kaam bhi legal tareeke se karte hain”, is a study in modern cultural anthropology. An exploration of the awareness that political crimes are becoming easier to catch, hence loopholes in-laws are being exploited by those whose job it is to uphold laws, those who understand laws better than you and I. Beti padhaao, desh badhaao ke naare sirf optics ke liye lagaaye jaate hain loudspeaker par. Ghar ka chhajja ek meter extra tha, toh bulldozer use todne tumhaare ghar tab aata hai jab politician tumse naaraz ho. Husband ki sarkaari naukri sirf tab jaati hai jab tum sach thoda saaf aur ooncha bolne lago, journalists speaking the truth aren’t safe, and inadvertently if one has even a little bit of privilege one HAS profited from these system, kabhi knowingly kabhi unknowingly, jiski reparations karna bhi zaroori hai. And while politicians may or may not receive their comeuppance in our lifetimes, powerful systems like patriarchy will have to be dismantled, as more men learn from women who have had to fight for everything and can teach you a thing or two about leading big and small revolutions every day.
Anushka Kaushik, plays Rinki Kumari, the student who brings the case against her university, is an absolutely stellar performer and I dare say, if it weren’t for her, and the absolute fire charisma of Chandan Roy Sanyal, each time he appears on screen, this film would have fallen apart quite spectacularly. Satish Kaushik, in another posthumous performance, is every bit the entertainer he always was, here as the judge presiding over the case. You drown out the BGM and ignore everything else in the frame that yells “basic”, each time Satish Kaushik takes the stage, whether he’s picking a gavel from his bag, or buying tamatar at the sabzi mandi. Another male character who learns and unlearns in his own time, without laying the blame on women, or their need to have agency.
Eventually, I wish Patna Shuklla had a tad more faith in itself and the merit of the story it chose to tell. The film is light in intention, heavy-handed in execution, and unfortunately using cliches to present its fresh ideas. Disney+ Hotstar par dekhiye aap, and bataaiye.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Patna Shuklla is……1–2 interview hi agar mil jaayein poori cast ki with the filmmaker, please comments mein link dena. Alag insight milti hai filmmaking ke process mein when you watch promotional interviews AFTER you’ve watched the film.
