Movie: Lakshmi
Director: Nagesh Kukunoor
Cast: Monali Thakur, Nagesh Kukunoor, Shefali Shah, Flora Saini, Sathish Kaushik, Ram Kapoor
Rating: **1/2
“Lakshmi” is Nagesh’s best work since “Iqbal” and “Dor” because it takes the unfortunate story of a 14-year old girl forced to become a prostitute and presents it in the most unbelievably realistic, explicit, stomach-churning way one could ever imagine. You squirm in your seat as young Lakshmi is forced to cater to multiple clients in a single night for attempting to run away, or when Chinna (Kukunoor) puts a lit cigarette in Jyoti’s (Shefali) vagina for aiding a social worker conduct a sting operation in the brothel. Several such scenes make “Lakshmi” probably the only Indian film to blur the line dividing reel and real.
Due to abject poverty, Lakshmi is sold off to a pimp for Rs. 30,000 by her father. Chinna, the pimp, played by Nagesh, is known for recruiting young women into flesh trade under the tutelage of his elder brother, Reddy Garu, played by Sathish Kaushik. After spending few days at Reddy’s, where she gets raped, Lakshmi is soon taken to the brothel. There, she’s taught the art of satisfying horny customers – young, old, lean and fat – all kinds of men you could ever imagine. Lakshmi initially resists, but soon reaches the stage of normalization. Amidst all this, she makes numerous attempts to flee, only to be cruelly punished by Chinna afterwards. But she eventually leaves the place when a social worker posing as a customer places a secret camera in Lakshmi’s room. She turns into a witness and files a case against the Reddy brothers.
Although “Lakshmi” addresses a serious issue with conviction, it is still inundated with flaws that get neatly concealed by the realistic scenes we are drawn towards. Unable to detach itself from the commercial trappings of Bollywood, the titular character is played by an extremely pretty Monali Thakur instead of an unknown face not as pretty as her. All women in a brothel are treated alike, there’s no special treatment for someone who happens to be pretty. A pretty girl might earn herself some extra money but every sex worker is abused in the same fashion. It looks like Monali was cast because it’s a Hindi film, which needed a typical good looking heroine. Does this mean we won’t sympathize with a Lakshmi who is not as pretty as Monali?
The film needed someone who could do justice to Lakshmi’s true story without compromising. By including extremely realistic and cringe-inducing scenes, Nagesh makes the film overtly dramatic but rarely emotional. He wants us to feel for Lakshmi because she’s being raped and beaten but what he fails to create is an emotional bond with the audience.
The second half of the film, which unfolds mostly in a courtroom, gets extremely silly. You can hardly feel any tension but instead an aura of sympathy is created for audiences to get all teary-eyed. And most do get emotional, without realizing the fact that Lakshmi is once again made the victim in the court as well.
Monali struggled to express the grief of Lakshmi. It was very important that she got under the skin of her character, but all that we see from her is relentless crying and a fake accent using which she says sorry as ‘saary’ and chocolate ‘chaaacalate’. There’s absolutely no consistency in the accent. It’s not just Lakshmi we see mouthing dialogues in a fake Hyderabadi accent, but all the characters including Nagesh. I agree Nagesh, who hails from Hyderabad, was not as bad as the others with his accent, but he still couldn’t get the accent perfectly. It was like all the actors were forced to speak in an accident they were not comfortable with or didn’t find time to master it.
Nagesh and Shefali are the only silver lining in the cast department. Flora Saini boldly flaunts her assets but hardly has any scope for performance. Satish Kaushik was a misfit for the character that needed someone who could be maniacal as well as caring. Most Indian films have the tendency of portraying government officials as flawed and that explains why we have a villainous lady corporator, who buys Lakshmi from her father in the beginning.
