The film goes beyond the India Gate-Punjabi cliches that Hindi cinema so easily boxes the Capital in. Then there is Sangeeta (played with a gritty dignity by Sarita Sharma), the wife of Vikram, who too is blasé about having found another man "friend" and is admirably cold and unmoved about helping a family that made her own life miserable. And you know that she will keep finding such ways and means in life. Prince may not be a solution to her problems, In fact, he could well be more exploitative than she thinks, but he is a tool, her mode of resistance if not entirely the way out. She conveniently makes a business deal of a marriage she never wanted to get into, she and Titli trading in their own ambitions and escape routes. Prince love hain mere (Prince is the love of my life)", or getting cosy with Prince right under Titli's nose. Shivani Raghuvanshi is brilliantly assertive, be it arguing with a car salesman, announcing to Titli that she has a lover: " There is Titli's bride Neelu who may have been forced into a marriage but will resist sex with her husband. They have their own modes and ways out of the injustices meted out to them. They are the victims and yet not quite wallowing in victimhood. Any good film about patriarchy has got to be about women and the film's finest characters are two such ladies. But he scores big with the portrayal of women. Is there no getting away then?īehl gives us a broad picture of the male universe instead of the details - the hows and whys are for the audience to figure - and often one is left with a lot of questions unanswered. As are Titli's own volatile moments that make you fear the worst, that he is dangerously close to becoming that which he is actually trying to escape. His casual, throwaway sexism - the talk ofĭhanda (business) - is more chilling and scary than even that of Vikram. Amit Sial as the mediator "middle" brother Bawla may not have the show stealing moments but is impactful in his quietude.
Are men also the victims of the patriarchy they perpetuate and whose values they have to constantly live up to? Worth a thought. Ranvir Shorey, as the big brother Vikram, personifies patriarchy at its most complex with his inner violence standing in contrast to the tears of vulnerability that well up when divorce papers get sent his way. The trigger could well be something as inane as a stranger talking to the "ladies" than directly addressing the man in a conversation. All that is there to this world is an overwhelming maleness and latent aggression that comes forth with an alarming, unbridled ferocity at the slightest provocation.
Vikram’s wife too has separated from him, taking their little daughter away. It's an unspoken family legacy of sorts, passed on from one generation to the next, much like the morning ritual of brushing teeth, rinsing and gargling in a certain characteristic way. We know that for long she has been at the receiving end of her husband's abuse.
The ineffectual daddy has been shoved to the background with brother Vikram taking over as the patriarch. And has its own fascinating relationship dynamics at play. But does that mean it doesn't exist? It does. It's a weird and warped family of rough hewn, unwashed men, the kind that you don't normally find in Hindi cinema. Getting the ownership of a car park in an upcoming mall near Delhi is the way out for him to become his own man than get stuck with three other good-for-nothing men in his life - two elder brothers and a father - who live by carjacking when not doing some odd jobs. There's not a speck of hope that lurks in there but an urgent desperation to escape the suffocating world he is confined in. It's that look in newcomer Shashank Arora's eyes - dry and dead - in the first few frames of the film that sums up Titli, the lead character he plays in Kanu Behl's relentlessly downbeat, violent yet disturbingly persuasive portrayal of patriarchy.
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