Prakash Jha‘s much-awaited movie “Lipstick Under My Burkha” has been finally released. The movie features Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aahana Kumra, Plabita Borthakur in the lead, whereas supporting roles played by Vikrant Massey, Sushant Singh, Shashank Arora, Vaibhav Tatwawaadi, Jagat Singh Solanki. The movie is directed by Alankrita Shrivastava.
The movie which has created so many controversies before its release but, the filmmakers decide to fight back and win. The movie has arrived in theaters this week with all the guns blazing and giving us the middle finger. The movie is absolutely worth your time and your thoughts, this is actually the kind of movie we can demand, with its deep, personal, political and powerful look into women’s lives, which says what it needs to, and makes its points, without being preachy or polemical, or beating our heads with it.
The movie is based on the four women in Bhopal, going about their lives. Particularly their situations have a universal resonance and through the comings and goings, the movie draws a picture of how women are bound, by convention and tradition and of their inner lives and other bonds which keep them going.
Ratna Pathak Shah is essaying the role of ‘Buaaji’ in the movie. She is the moral center of Hawai Mahal and her being a manifestly chaste middle-aged widow allows her to wield authority over the other residents, which includes the other three women, and their families.
Konkona Sen which is playing the role of Shireen is a mother of three and her husband Sushant Singh, who believes that wives are used strictly to bear and rear offspring and be pliant bed-warmers. The third women Leela (Aahana Kumra) runs a beauty parlour where all the ladies in the mohalla come to get threading-and-waxing jobs. She is a frankly sexual creature and she does not bother who knows it whether it’s her boy friend (Vikram Massey) or her potential groom (Vaibhav Tatwawaadi). The fourth and youngest amongst all Plabita Borthakur is struggling to find her voice, literally and metaphorically. But her orthodox parents are as stifling, as is the cruel assessment of her cool status, or the lack of it, by her smart college-mates.
The movie is the upfront and frank manner in which female desires and fantasy are treated, running like a strong, vital thread through the film. The movie says that ‘Dreams can keep you alive’, and age is just a number. ‘Buaaji’ has almost forgotten her name, is a revelation, crafted from pulpy, erotic literature, a girl called Rosie who is free to love and lust, and a well-muscled swimming coach. All the four actresses have done a terrific job and the supporting cast is a delight, the cast has been chosen well and has a definite arc and function, a rarity in mainstream Bollywood.
The deep red lipstick becomes the colour and mode of rebellion, giving us a hint of what goes on inside—the turmoil, the pain, the swallowed humiliation, the unshed tears, the unspoken resentment, and anger. Previously there is a problem for the naysayers, who want to keep women safety inside home and hearth.
A song I love goes: where do you go to my lovely, when you’re alone in your head? The movie takes us into a place lets its characters out, to start walking down forbidden paths, finding support in sisterhood, and in the recognition that we all have shades of Rosie in us. It is a film to be celebrated. Take a bow, producer Prakash Jha, director Alankrita Shrivastava, and the entire cast and crew.