Laapataa Ladies: Breaking down the war against patriarchy to small triumphant moments of victory

Kiran Rao’s impressive yet simplistic “Lapaataa Ladies” is an attempt to break down feminist ideas into its most basic principles. The film uses long standing bollywood cliches in an effective manner to convey its central ideas to the audience. These cliches are borrowed from the now overused “small-town film” playbook. This can vary from incompetent policemen, uneducated dwellers of the village, a misogynistic older generation and long shots of agricultural fields. The film never shies away from its familiarity and instead uses it to strengthen its messaging. 

The film tells the story of two newlywed women who are accidentally interchanged. The interchange happens due to the “ghoonghat”, a tradition in the country which is used to conceal the identity of women. The interchanged brides are both given polar opposite characteristics. One woman has seen this mishap as an excuse to break free from the patriarchal norms that the society tries to coerce her into. The other woman begins questioning these ideals only after the event occurs in her life. The film also subtly includes nods to the lack of individuality provided to women in rural India. The title and the behavior of the villagers implies that these women are mere possessions that can be “lost”. They are treated less as human beings and more as objects that can be acquired. This is touched upon in many small scenes which include kids naming a woman replacement for the other. There are also subtle nods to this idea sprinkled in various parts of the film. One of these is glaringly visible in the way the government officials treat these women. While the police officers base the value of a woman off of her material possessions even the railway officials note their names in a “lost and found” notebook. This subtle showcase of marginal representation of women as individuals adds heavily to the feminist messaging.

The two worlds that the film is able to create are the most important aspects for the success of the film. These worlds are bustling with characters that have been written with creativity and sincerity. Very few characters suffer from being reduced to a single caricature. These worlds are also filmed in a very lifelike manner with brilliant cinematography. The unnecessarily cinematic wide shots are balanced out by the beauty the camera manages to find in rather odd places. Ram Sampath’s music is aptly offbeat and manages to define the absurd nature of the plot through songs. There are some majorly convenient occurrences in the plot that show changes in character and plot points. This takes away from the rather realistic portrait of India that it manages to build through visuals and dialogue. This is combined with some preachy conversations between two characters which seems out of place for its setting. However, the screenplay binds together multiple loosely tied elements by the end giving way to a triumphant climax that results in an ultimately fulfilling experience.