Cast: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar, Divyendu Sharma, Sudhir
Pande and Anupam Kher;
Director: Shree Narayan Singh
Rating: ****
There is a summit of no return in the plot when we, the audience,
become so immersed in the protagonist's crusade for a better tomorrow that we
are cheering and stomping our feet in support for that bright sunshine-drenched
tomorrow of which Sahir Ludhianvi dreamt in "Pyaasa" and "Phir
Subah Hogi".
Our character Madhav's battle is not really reformatory in
the way the great heroes of our period meant it to be. In Hrishikesh
Mukherjee's "Satyakam", when the protagonist Dharmendra marries the
rape victim, he does it with the least amount of self-congratulations. In
"Toilet: Ek Prem Katha", Akshay Kumar's assignment to build a toilet
for his wife is compare with Shah Jahan building the Taj Mahal for his wife.I
wonder who should feel more affronted by such flamboyant self-glorification:
Moghul history or Modi politics. Either way, there is much too much
self-congratulations and heroic hurrahs playing at the foreground of this exciting
drama, accompanied by an over-punctuated backdrop score.
Akshay Kumar means business. This film is not so much a means
of transportation to promote the Prime Minister's Swachh Bharat campaign as to
promote Akshay Kumar, period. He milks the film for all his trademark chuckles
and giggles, making Madhav seem like a Basu Chatterjee hero with a certain sly
and smooth sinewiness to his great courage.
It is debutant director Shree Narayan Singh who proves you
don't need extra sinewiness to shine in every frame. He is the Basu Chatterjee
and Hrishikesh Mukherjee of our times. He makes hygiene and sanitation seem
humorous without trivialising or tempering the issue. The sorority evidenced
among the village women as they crowd off in the morning for nature call is
captured with a deferential laugh.
Here is testimony that a film can make a social end without
wearing a constantly sullen demeanour.
all the way through the lengthy film, the director maintains
a kinetic momentum. He has his character's feelings on his fingertips. He digs
into the high-points in the stage demonstrate with the disarmed delight of a
kid scooping into a basin of icecream. He negotiates the dips and curves in
this bombastic tale of a man who must fight sanskaar' (no no, not the kind
favoured by the censor board) to build a toilet for his newly matrimonial wife.
A warm rudeness and a nimble wisdom pervade the
storytelling. The plot is a pyramid of high-pitched drama captured in the basic
colours of nature's components by cinematographer Anshuman Mahaley (he had shot
the first "Jolly LLB" film using an equally gritty palate). That the
director is also the editor, helps him to remain on top of the commodious
material. But the film could have been abridged post-interval where some of the
toilet-building drama get repetitive and shrill.
Though the high-pitched propagandist tenor and tone of the
narration turn out to be overpowering after a tip as does Akshay Kumar's exaggerated
humanism -- the film keeps us absolutely close to its heart as Madhav and
Jaya's love story acquires a universality by dint of their close affinity to
the grassroot level of continuation.
Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar play against one another in
sparring spasms, their age difference notwithstanding. They look like a couple.
The real performing sparks fly when the supporting castSudhir Pande,
Divyendu Sharma, Anupam Kher are approximately
to lend heft to the socio-political quarrel on how women in rural India require
dignity before empowerment.
This is essentially a cause-without-pause melodrama set at
an opulent octave. gladly, executive Shree Narayan Singh counterbalances those
shrill notes of self-righteousness and propaganda with just the right doses of
warmth, humour and irony.
Don't look for subtlety in the storytelling in "Toilet:
Ek Prem Katha" and you will come away a happy viewer with some significant
thoughts on how non-metropolitan India exists without caving into a depression.
