Movie Review – Thappad

Can a story about coming of age revolve around a slap?

Can an extremely layered narrative be built on this premise?

Can it showcase gender stereotypes and raise more questions than give answers?

And most importantly can it actually slap each and every one of us?

To answer all these questions, I would strongly recommend you watch the movie- Thappad. This review is a reflection of my own reactions to situations in the movie and does reveal certain plot elements along with my own biases and life story. Read on to know more.

The Layered Narrative

This is not a linear story. There are stories within this story and there is a lot of symbolism. Before the main characters are introduced, the movie introduces supporting characters in happy scenes. The orange ice-cream candy and context in which its relished by these characters is an interesting setup.

The story is not entirely focusing on the protagonist. It’s more like avengers where all heroes assemble and the story impacts and reveals each character. Not every character’s arc is fully developed and frankly, there are some cliched moments in their journeys, but its all woven beautifully and importantly it’s not jarring.

The narrative is largely around gender stereotypical roles and its conscious and subconscious enforcement and validation. The movie portrays these gender stereotypes and pitches them against and with each other so that we take notice of them. The narrative keeps a lot of room for your own interpretation while also giving you very specific moments where you would feel one with some of the characters. This is really the power of the story as it draws you in and keeps you in this world for 2+ hours.

The Mother Complex

Having completed recent self-work exploring my own shadows, I connected the movie’s narrative with the Jungian concept of Mother complex. The protagonist is largely seen more connected with her father and they seem to have a visceral bond. This is beautifully depicted through one scene where her father takes ill immediately after she is slapped at the party. He is the only one who is really in touch with her inner world.

Kumud Mishra as her father has really done an amazing job of playing this character. He is also caught in his own world just like the other husband played by Pavali Gulati. When Mishra recognizes he was oblivious to the fact that he could have helped his wife reach her potential, he quietly accepts the fact and is lost for words. Such sub-narratives supporting the main narrative is the key strength. The movie is not entirely about just this slap by 1 husband to his wife but is a moment used to dig deeper into the psyche of everyone around.

The film at one point blames most woman characters for continuous validation of the traditional narrative. The women characters eschew dialogues like – this is how it has been, and women are expected to sacrifice to confirm and affirm these beliefs. The men are largely playing the masculine characteristic roles and are completely unaware or out of touch of their feminine. Thus, the movie underlines masculine = male and feminine = female narrative. The only male characters actively are seen balancing masculine and feminine are the protagonist and her father.

Questions

How do you define boundaries of what is right and wrong in relationships? – The movie is largely about the love relationship between a man and a woman. It also has this strong presence of achieving one’s dreams and sacrifices one must do for the same. The corporate life and office politics are very beautifully mixed with the politics of families. The characters keep moving back and forth in these 2 worlds. In one scene one of the characters calls this out and says that while we are in a race in office the family is not in any race.

Who is a man and who is a woman – The gender stereotypical roles are assigned to us by everyone around and we take on someones with gusto until we realize what we were doing! In the movie, the slap is literally a wake-up call for the protagonist who then starts to see her own patterns and those of others. She recognizes that in her role as a loving wife, dutiful daughter-in-law she has given up her own identity. In this process, her feminine is constantly invoked by others while she has got in touch with the masculine in her. She asserts herself and decides to carry on the battle, to only invoke the feminine and masculine in other characters.

Problems

While I understand the movie had to paint masculine and feminine and hold that mirror by putting them firmly in their commonly understood physical forms. I have a problem with the narrative where only this side of the characters is shown. I understand the narrative needed this contrast to build yet this is something that isn’t sitting well with me. May be its some of my internal drama that is preventing this to settle.

The movie has left me wondering about certain sub-plots and have not really given me completion on all the sub-stories it opened for me. The story between the lawyer’s daughter-in-law and her father-in-law. The story between Taapasse’s brother and his love interest could well be full-blown stories themselves.

In the end, the movie seemed to provide a happy ending for all characters as every woman is seen to be celebrating her liberation of some sort. In my mind, that’s playing to the gallery and making it too simplistic. The main characters end on a note where they are signing the divorce, yet they seem to be trying to rediscover the lost love. This quick turn around of events is a little difficult to comprehend though I loved this aspect of rediscovering love in this new person that your partner has become.

4 Stars

While I am accusing the creators of a cliched ending, I am ending the movie review with my own cliché by giving you a strong “Must Watch” rating. This movie should be made part of gender equality workshops and other such work that’s happening in the corporate world.

The movie is going to be one of the cult movies that would be remembered for a long long time and I hope more students of cinema come back to this narrative and especially the way the story was told.

This is a great piece of work simply because all aspects of film making have come together to play their part to tell this story. The writing, the actors, the costumes, the sets, the dialogues, the music, the camera angles, the editing and many other such components that make a story what we see on screen are beautifully woven.

So yes, go watch this one and reflect on what you took away from the movie. Your likes and dislikes from this movie will tell you a lot about your own gender identity and stereotypes you hold. If not for anything else, please do watch it for this.