Laapataa Ladies Review: Solid, Feel-good Storytelling

Director: Kiran Rao
Writers: Sneha Desai, Biplab Goswami, Divyanidhi Sharma
Cast: Nitanshi Goel, Sparsh Shrivastava, Pratibha Ranta, Ravi Kishan, Chhaya Kadam, Durgesh Kumar

Duration: 122 mins

Available in: Theatres

The year is 2001. The state, Nirmal Pradesh, is fictional – a license to slot emotional credibility over cultural authenticity, but also a nod to the very Indian tradition of naming a place (nirmal means “pure”) to offset its ground reality. Young newlyweds Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastava) and Phool (Nitanshi Goel) are making the long trip to his village. Having married on an auspicious day, they’re not the only veiled bride and jumpy groom on the train. A late-night snafu results in Deepak alighting at his station with the wrong ‘wife’. By the time he sees her face, he’s already at his ancestral home – in the midst of celebration, in the most mortifying situation possible. His parents are not impressed; his friends are almost amused. To make matters worse, this incorrect bride, Pushpa (Pratibha Ranta), has no idea where her own husband’s home is. Meanwhile, a terrified Phool gets down with Pushpa’s new family, but chooses to wait at the station. She’s forgotten the name of Deepak’s village, too. It’s a tragedy of errors. A corrupt policeman, Shyam Manohar (Ravi Kishan), takes up the case. 

Not all hell breaks loose. Setting this rural satire in 2001 is a neat way to ensure that technology doesn’t diffuse the investigation too soon. (Nokia cellphones are luxurious enough to be dowry gifts). To be specific, it’s the middle of March: A Harbhajan Singh hat-trick at Eden Gardens is called on the radio. The narrative journey that follows is familiar. Over the next few days, while their disparate worlds serve all sorts of metaphors conflating social invisibility and literal absence, the two lost brides of Laapataa Ladies (“Missing Ladies”) start to find themselves. They begin to squeeze fresh-lime soda out of life’s lemons. This is by no means a pathbreaking story. What it is, however, is solid feel-good storytelling. The fundamentals are sound: The balance between levity and gravity, commentary and one-liners, milieu and escapism, urban gaze and hinterland candour. It’s also another example of post-pandemic film-making that stays still – and straightforward – because it knows that the average viewer is the one in motion. 

In other words, Kiran Rao’s second feature revels in a back-to-basics simplicity.  You can see it coming from miles away, but there’s an old-school appeal about a satisfying payoff. A predictable but well-performed conflict. A convoluted but sweet chaos. Stagey but utopian humour. The screenplay is rooted in cliches – like Phool being ‘adopted’ by a gang of golden-hearted railway misfits, or Pushpa slowly schooling but affecting every member of Deepak’s household (imagine a feminist Raj from Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge). But much like 12th Fail (2023), the film commits to formula. So when Deepak is missing Phool, a corny wedding flashback appears, but it’s also elevated by a lovely moment where he tries to impress her with both his English (“I love you”) and his dramatic facial expressions when he says it. There’s a performative quiver in his voice, a spark in his eye; you can tell that he’s probably learnt it from a Bollywood movie. 

A Script Worth Following

There are more instances of this tonal conviction. When a progressive Pushpa probes Deepak’s mother (Geeta Agarwal Sharma, of course) about her passion for cooking, the middle-aged woman says one of the film’s many ‘scripted’ lines: “I suppose women embrace all identities – mother, wife, sister, daughter – except friendships”. But then she asks her mother-in-law if they can be friends, a playful gesture that deflates the film’s on-the-nose tone. When Phool starts working at the station, she gains confidence and wonders aloud why “women don’t get more opportunities”. The sharp explanation offered to her – that fear fools women into believing they need men – resembles Manoj Kumar Sharma’s answer during his UPSC interview in 12th Fail: “If citizens were educated, it would become a problem for the leaders”.

The smaller details, too, are so sincere that it hurts. The symbolism of “blooming” – read: blossoming, maturing, coming of age – is scattered across the film. Both names Phool and Pushpa translate to ‘flower’; Deepak means ‘light’ or ‘lamp’; the village that Phool can’t remember is called Surajmukhi (sunflower). Pushpa’s real name is revealed to be Jaya (‘victory’) – an integral part of the national anthem – only once we learn that she’s already ahead in her battle for independence. The news of a ‘fake bride gang’ is planted early on so that the audience – much like the characters – suspect the moral legitimacy of Jaya. It’s almost fitting that the woman’s quest for agency is shrouded by conspiracies of deception and villainy. Her struggle is an accurate reflection of societal bias: A girl who dares to dream is a man-made nightmare. Some of the ladies’ experiences feel too neat and easy, but it can also be interpreted as the film’s desire to reclaim fiction from the unsparing contours of reality. After all, a mistake triggered by the practical inconvenience of a ‘ghoonghat’ – a veil otherwise meant to conceal a woman’s honour and direct their gaze downward – is what opens their eyes. 

In Praise of Optimism

The freshest aspect of Laapataa Ladies – apart from its cast – is its measured ode to change. For starters, it acknowledges that patriarchy cannot be ‘smashed’ – and that the cinematic flourish of feminism need not be the antidote to deep-set chauvinism. The transformations need not be lavish. The message being: There’s always room for improvement. For instance, Phool doesn’t “break free” the way most female characters written by men do. Her stint at a tea-stall with a man-hating mentor doesn’t mean she suddenly starts her own business and becomes an entrepreneur – her epiphany is grounded within the parameters of her setting. She stays married, pines for Deepak, and learns just enough to look at herself as more than a bride. Her victories, then, are slight but right: We see Phool reaching for her veil out of muscle memory, only to realize that she’d rather hold his hand – as an equal – instead. Self-actualization is no single story; being a wiser woman and wife can be just as empowering as escaping the shackles of marriage. 

Similarly, Jaya’s dissenting personality makes her a prime candidate to become a fiery Alankrita Shrivastava character. But the difference is that Jaya doesn’t bulldoze her way to the future she deserves. She is humanised – rather than romanticised – by her guilt for walking over Deepak. She senses that her victimhood is turning her into an oppressor of sorts; she is winning at the cost of his life. The modest upgrade of Deepak’s sister-in-law – a woman in a long-distance marriage – extends this theme. Jaya inspires her to speak, smile and pursue her artistic talents, but baby steps – like being able to utter her husband’s name rather than allude to him ‘respectfully’ – are what define her journey. Her courage is calibrated to fit who she is, not who we want her to be. 

There is also room for everyone to change. Even a passing gag – where a Muslim shopkeeper lectures Deepak about veils and identities only for his burqa-clad wife to serve him tea – reveals the all-round democracy of the message. Through these touches, the film often implies that something like gender discrimination – and cultural complicity – is everywhere; an indictment of one section of society does not absolve the other. The rot is whole. The tea-stall owner (Chhaya Kadam) who takes Phool under her wing might have been staged as a you-go-girl badass in most movies – a strong, working woman who needs no men to survive. She even delivers a ‘punchline’ (“A man who loves you has the right to hit you?”) that directly censures Indian cinema’s toxic-masculinity problem. But here, even she is given the capacity to change a little: Her cynicism softens towards the end, because she discovers that rebellion need not exclude the right to love. The paan-chewing inspector – the character with the most crowd-pleasing transformation – doesn’t magically evolve either. The presence of a female constable chisels his ego away. And when he does evolve, it’s shaped by the technicalities of the law. It comes with a caveat: A bribe is still accepted, abuse is still witnessed, so the conscience is only as clear as his male privilege allows it to be. 

That’s the essence of Laapataa Ladies. The lost-and-found parables aren’t lofty. The design is unpretentious. The intent is honest. The wit is situational. The imperfections are human. The limits are respected. And it doesn’t pretend to be an open-heart surgery of sexism; Rome wasn’t ‘solved’ in a day. All it offers are colourful pills: painkillers, cough syrups and truth-steam inhalations. In 2024, the mere sight of ladies and not-so-gentle men willing to listen – and scribble in the language of accountability rather than write a resounding statement – is nice enough. Why drive home the point when you can skip, giggle and walk it home instead?