Laapataa Ladies: Review

In my opinion, Laapataa Ladies stands as one of the finest Bollywood movies. It is a Hindi-language comedy drama film which talks about the nuanced issues faced by women specially those living in villages or the remote parts of the India. 

Starring Nitanshi Goel, Sparsh Shrivastava, Pratibha Ratna, Chaaya Kadam, Ravi Kishan and Abhay Dubey the movie was able to hit big numbers on the box office, credits to the seamless acting of these actors.  

The story revolves around two-newly wed brides who get exchanged during a train ride and explores the themes of identity, cultural expectations and gender roles, particularly in the traditional settings. The movie addresses issues such as women wearing veil, cooking only what the men in their families prefer, and deriving their worth from household skills.  

The well-written script has some interesting plot twists keeping the audience engaged through out. Without complicating the main story line too much, the movie ends on an optimistic note where each women character learns something from the other. They showed each other how better life will be if they vocalized their own preferences and did not follow the patriarchal path dictated to them by the society. 

As the movie is set up against the background of a small village called Surajmukhi, there were no scenes of rebel from these women but just the subtle realization of how they are trapped in a restrictive social structure. Hence, the director Kiran Rao was successful in conveying her anti-patriarchy message within the two-hour runtime.