Madman
to PadMan
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| Image Courtesy: i.ytimg.com |
Reviewer’s
Thumb Mark
“We
must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope” – Martin
Luther King Jr.
R Balki’s film PadMan
is about Arunachalam Muraganantham, a man from Coimbatore who out of sheer love
for his wife and to deal with her period problems, used his creative bend of
mind to produce affordable sanitary pads. This initiative of his, made him a
social crusader for menstrual hygiene and a reason for many to be part of community
businesses which produce pads by his patented machines. Muraganantham’s path
breaking initiative in making affordable sanitary napkins for a larger section
in the society who are poor resonates the old adage – ‘Necessity is the mother
of invention”.
Films like PadMan,
which creates social awareness plays a pivotal role in influencing the minds of
people on taboo topics positively to bring in the necessary change in life and
their life styles. Such creative ventures are hard to ignore and even challenging
to doubt its intentions.
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| Image Courtesy: asianage.com |
Lakshmikant Chauhan
(Akshay Kumar), the film’s main protagonist is a mechanic by profession who got
recently married and brings his wife Gayatri (Radhika Apte) home, where his
family comprises of his aging mother and two young sisters who are still in
school. Lakshmikant, fondly called as Lakshmi, is disturbed to find his newly
wed wife leave the family dinner half done in a jiffy because she sensed that
her menstrual cycle has begun for the month. He was more horrified to find a
repeatedly used, washed and not so clean stained cloth being dried discretely
on a cloth line under her sari. What disturbs him further is that his wife
Gayatri segregates herself for the next five days from him and the rest of the
family.
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| Image Courtesy: hindustantimes.com |
What follows is a
curious and emotionally disturbed Lakshmi venturing into activities that shall
help him address the menstrual related problems of his wife. His efforts in
this regard leads him to come up with different kind of hand-made pads after
his visits to medical store to buy expensive pads that cost a bomb for a person
like him. His repeated failures make him visit a clinic which leads to some
instant gyan on menstrual hygiene and its health hazards if not followed along
with a wholly of data to vouch what the doctor lectured to him.
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| Image Courtesy: outlookhindi.com |
Radhika Apte as
Lakshmi’s wife and Sonam Kapoor as Pari Walia who plays the role of a
benefactor to the not so educated Lakshmi make their presence felt in the film.
Rakesh Chaturvedi in his short role as a professor makes a commendable impact;
it would have been great to see him perform if he could have got some more
screen space.
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| Image Courtesy: india-forums.com |
R Balki’s film PadMan
does a ‘Toilet Ek Prem Katha’ again for Akshay Kumar who by now has mastered to
sustain his nationalist hero image by copying and not acknowledging creative
projects and films done on the same theme and topic in the past by other fellow
industry people who unfortunately didn’t have big names to back them like Balki
or Viacom. Akshay Kumar then, during his Toilet Ek Prem Katha outing claimed
that his was the first one to talk about sanitation in India whereas the topic
was dealt by a documentary filmmaker first and later by a filmmaker Pratik
Sharma and Producer-Actor Asmita Sharma who made the first feature film in
Bollywood titled as “Gutrun Gutargun’ on the same topic.
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| Image Courtesy: mid-day.com |
And now once again, as being
claimed, PadMan is not the first film made on the subject in the country.
Before R Balki and Mrs Funnybones, three films have been already made on the
same taboo subject – 1. Menstrual Man in 2013 a one-hour long documentary
directed by Amit Virmani; 2. Phullu a feature film made in 2017 directed by
Abhishek Saxena starring Sharib Hashmi; and 3. I-Pad an unreleased feature film
actually the first made on the importance of sanitary pads written and directed
by Amit Rai. Abhishek Saxena in one of his recent press statement cried foul
against the CBFC because his film Phullu which dealt with the same topic of
menstrual hygiene like PadMan was issued an ‘A’ certificate and PadMan a U/A
certificate.
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| The Real PadMan Arunachalam Muruganantham Image Courtesy: daily.social |
A film like PadMan
that claims to be a biopic on Arunachalam Muruganantham we find more of Akshay
Kumar the hero and less of what Arunchalam Muruganantham was and is in real
life. Murugunantham’s humility, mission and struggle to become what he is for
the society today is missing in real sense and is
superimposed with scenes and dialogues which appears to be too superficial and
made up to suit the hero in Akshay Kumar. The film before interval is more
situational and therefore one can relate with what is happening but
unfortunately the film post interval turns out to be more heroic. The way
PadMan procures raw materials from abroad by just a phone call is too childish
and the long UN speech doesn’t appear real at all. PadMan from the start to the
end is prescriptive and therefore loses its charm of a biopic.
In short, PadMan is a
onetime watch. Go and watch Balki’s PadMan if you haven’t seen the other movies
made on the same topic before; if you are not keen to know how different and
real is Arunachalam Murugunantham than it is shown in this film; and if you
give a damn to the growing trend in the industry of claiming to be the first/pioneers
and not having the courtesy to acknowledge fellow filmmakers and artist if they
have made something similar in terms of theme and concept.
Life Connoisseur
Movie Rating: 3.25/5
Cast: Akshay Kumar
(Lakshmikant Chauhan), Radhika Apte (Gayatri), Sonam Kapoor (Pari Walia),
Rakesh Chaturvedi (Professor), Amitabh Bachchan (Cameo)
Genre: Biopic Drama
Directed: R Balki
Producers: Twinkle
Khanna, SPE films India, KriArj Entertainment, Cape of Good Films, Hope
Productions
Written by: R Balki,
Swanand Kirkire (Co-writer)
Based on: The legend
of Lakshmi Prasad by Twinkle Khanna
Narrated by: Amitabh
Bachchan
Music by: Amit
Trivedi
Cinematography: PC Sreeram
Edited by: Chandan
Arora
Production Company:
Columbia Pictures, Hope Productions, KriArj Entertainment, Mrs. Funnybones
Movies
Distributor: Sony
Pictures
Release Date: 9th
February 2018
Duration: 140 Minutes
Language: Hindi
