Opening Doorz

By Martin D’Souza | Opening Doorz Editorial | September 16, 2016

Rating: 4 / 5

The essence: At the end of the movie, I staggered out of the theatre with just one word resounding in my head. “NO.”

“NO.”

She said “No”.

That settles it. That should settle it.

But No. You are a man Rajveer (Angad Bedi). And you have the physical strength to overpower. Moreover, you and Meenal (Tapsee Pannu) had just wined and dined together. Your immediate assessment was that she was easy. Available. Willing. You had just met at a rock show and her friend Vishwa (Tushar Pandey) happened to be your friend and that’s why she agreed to dine with you and your friends along with her friends. You were not complete strangers. There was that sense of security, even though frail.

But No. you are not willing to listen to a “No”; she bangs a bottle on your head.

“Do you know how it feels to be touched by a man when you don’t want to be touched; who you want nothing to do with?” Ask Meenal. She wailed about it in court. She was not ‘available’ like you thought she was.

Do you know what it feels to be abused in court by a lawyer so silly that he is ripping into your sanity with questions he won’t dare ask his own daughter or mother or sister? Ask your sister, she was sipping wine too at a party.

But YES, we have lawyer Deepak Sahgal (Amitabh Bachchan), who defines the dignity of the three women wrongly accused and repeatedly abused.

Slowly, he tears into the prosecution with a line of questions so bizarre that even the girls are caught off guard. But that’s the honest truth and it was only in this brutal, honest manner that Sahgal could have exposed the double-standards of our society.

It was only with this shocking, transparent approach that he could return the dignity of the three falsely accused and turn the tables on the arrogant youth backed by political power.

So NO, don’t be afraid to speak the truth; but yes, choose wisely, the people you want to be out with.

Ladies and gentlemen, this in brief is Pink. Three friends, all working girls staying in a rented apartment [ Falak (Kirti Kulhari), Andrea (Andrea Tariang) and Meenal] in New Delhi are out on a fun night which turns nasty. They are falsely accused, simply because they are working girls and are presumed to be ‘loose characters’.

When they are pushed to the wall, that’s the furthest their adversaries can shove them. Then, they take one tentative step forward, then another and another until they overpower their adversary.

Amitabh Bachchan as Sahgal is astounding. Quietly he lays bare the facts for the court to take its stand.

Kirti, Tapsee and Andrea bring the screen alive with their carefree attitude as well as their fear. But the overpowering of their fear is what defines Pink. Watch out when each of these girls in their individual scenes breakdown, helpless as one loose charge after the other is heaped upon them, just for being a woman. Kirti, Tapsee and Andrea… take a bow. You translated onto the audience your fear and your helplessness of being a woman. You made us reach out to you for the wrong that was being done.

Angad is ferociously terrific. Vijay Verma who frightens Meenal is “in the zone” too. Just a couple of scenes and he stamps his class.

Director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury has the entire plot in his grip and keeps you rooted to your seat. He brings to mind Pan Nalin’s Angry Indian Goddesses a film which celebrates womanhood and also shows a mirror to society.

NO is finally what gets the girls justice.

NO is what finally resounds in the courtroom after the trauma of losing their dignity whilst being questioned and cross-questioned, time and again.

In this case, NO was the truth!

At the end of the movie, I staggered out of the theatre with just one word resounding in my head.

NO.

That settled it.

CREDITS
Producer: Rashmi Sharma, Shoojit Sircar, Sheel Kumar
Director: Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury
Star Cast: Amitabh Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari, Andrea Tariang, Angad Bedi,Dhritiman Chatterjee, Piyush Mishra, Mamata Shankar