Laapata ladies - review

 First thing that attracted me to this movie was its title - very cute and easy to say. But was bit hesitant to watch it for almost every single member of the cast were new except for the inspector. But wow. If there ever were a crop of new bunch of actors who are so apt and super natural to watch, this crew would be it. Each person are so apt and perfect for their role that, it felt like a candid camera of real life personalities. The mousy vulnerable yet pure at heart village guy who is so smitten in love with his newly wed wife, of whom he had only shared couple of sideways glance during the wedding rituals, the unbelievable-that-such-kind-of-innocent-girls-still-exist kind of a character performed by one of the leading ladies who looks so innocent and vulnerable on screen that one actually wants to help her somehow, the sharp witted other bride who gets mixed up with the innocent one, the casting has been so perfect that, even on mute you can make out from their expressions. Lovely bunch of fresh talent for hindi cinema and kudos to the casting director.

Storywise, it could have been a very different genre at every step of the way and the director does a neat rope walk in maintaining the ingrained humour of mix up situations and focusing on feminist ideologist setup, without shoving it on the viewers and making them realize it on their own. I saw a scene in trailer but on the picture it wasn't there. Either scared of "hurting" the sentiments of other religion or to avoid any unnecessary controversy. But that was such a beautiful scene highlighting the plight of women across faiths. It all begins with 2 wedding parties boarding a train, with their newlyweds in full gunghat . When the train stops at a station in mid of the night, one of the wedding party leaves the train along with their new bride to their village. In the darkness, the brides gets mixed up. The original bride who wakes up to find her inlaw family missing, gets down on the station where the other group leaves, albeit without their missing bride, hardly perturbed. The innocent bride takes refuge in a small shop selling savories in the station, helped by couple of people who look scary but are good at heart. The savvy one who went along with the wedding party to their village, has other plans, having knowingly escaped from her newly wed, aspiring to do higher studies. Throw in a corrupt cop who milks the victims for any amount of money, who suspects the savvy bride of something along with a ruffian of a husband, you've a perfect setting of cat-chasing-mouse. Did the savvy bride achieve her dreams, did the innocent one rejoined with her loving husband forms the climax.

There are so many layers to the movie that while you reminisce about the story, none of which is in your face or trying to force the brilliance of the story teller. It is all so subtle and shown with a tinge of humour that makes "Laapata ladies" one of the nice movies of 2024.