Kalki Koechlin's Margarita With A Straw is a moving tale of a special life
Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Revathy, Sayani Gupta;
Writer and Director: Shonali Bose (and Nilesh Maniyar)
Rating: *****
At the end of this exquisitely designed film I wasn't sure whether I had just watched a film about a very special life of a specially-abled girl who can't move a limb without her mother's help but has the hots for... let me see, at least two boys and one woman. And, we are still counting.
Or, was I watching an extraordinary rendition of the mother-daughter relationship done in shades so distinctive and deep that you leave behind a part of your being with the film when you leave the theatre even as you take home something invaluable with you.
Margarita With A Straw, so named because its cerebral palsy-afflicted stubbornly spirited heroine would have the cocktail in a tumbler with a straw, but have she will, is a film that leaves you profoundly enriched.
The film creates a crisscross of complicated relationships among human beings who seek normalcy in their strenuously challenged lives both within their homes and outside.
But the beauty of it is, the tangles in which human beings find themselves in their quest for kinship tends to solve itself in the end. It's the way life works, so what's the big deal? Says this remarkable film.
Shonali Bose's film never stops to wonder what Laila's life would have been like had she been ...well, normal. Being normal!... Now that's a question which the film's brilliantly written script, never stops to entertain.
Non-judgemental to the core and never fearful of peering into forbidden areas of the humam psyche(in one of the many bravely executed sequences Laila pleasures herself away from her mother's watchful eyes after watching porn clips on her laptop), Margarita With A Straw blends commentary on dysfunctional lives with that sense of profound yearning which comes to any individual who aspires to go beyond his or her allotted space in life.
Laila's aspirations take her through a geopolitical emotional and sexual journey that finally leaves her and us, wiser.
All three levels of Laila's education are textured into the plot with a minimum of fuss. Shonali Bose cuts through moments and montages from Laila's life with luminous austerity.
We see more than what meets the eye. Not only because the film's editors (Monisha Baldawa and Bob Brooks) have done their jobs effectively but also because this film believes in saying a lot about the quality of human life without wasting time in self-pity.
Tears, you will see, don't get a chance to roll down cheeky cheeks here. It is precisely because this Bollywood film refuses to ruminate on the tragic grandeur of life that it creates a sense of unassuming dignity in the lives that we see on screen, none more bravely and emphatically dignified in adversity than Laila.
