Chhapaak Movie (2020) Review in English, Cast & Released Date

Chhapaak Movie Poster

Chhapaak Movie Genre

Biography / Drama

Chhapaak Movie Story

Taking a gander at acid violence through the viewpoint of survivor Laxmi Agarwal, Chhapaak recounts to the account of a young lady (Malti) originating from an unprivileged yet humble foundation. At the point when Malti rejects the advances made by a man twice her age, she is assaulted with corrosive on a road in New Delhi. With her face hopelessly consumed, Malti experiences medico-social recovery, a drawn out string of facial medical procedures, a fight in court against her assailant and a consistent battle to turn out to be financially free. 

During this time, Malti likewise joins a crusade against Acid viciousness and goes over different unfortunate casualties. She frames an incomprehensible bond with Amol, the author of the crusade however it is Malti's down changing PIL in the Supreme Court of India, with her legal counselor Archana Bajaj, that motivates the Judiciary to alter the laws on corrosive savagery. An account of the triumph of the unquashable human soul.

Chhapaak Movie Trailer

Chhapaak Movie Cast

• Deepika Padukone as Malti
• Vikrant Massey as Amol
• Rohit Sukhwani

Chhapaak Movie song

1. Nok Jhok - 3:58

Siddharth Mahadevan

Chhapaak Movie Release date

10 January 2020

Directed by

Meghna Gulzar

Produced by

Fox Star Studios

Deepika Padukone

Govind Singh Sandhu

Meghna Gulzar

Written by

Atika Chohan

Meghna Gulzar

Music by

Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy

Cinematography

Malay Prakash

Edited by

Nitin Baid

Production company

Fox Star Studios

KA Productions

Mriga Films

Distributed by

Fox Star Studios

Country

India

Language

Hindi

Chhapaak Movie Review

What does Chhapaak mean? It’s the phonetic sound of a splash. It’s what you hear when acid hits skin. The recipient is routinely a woman and the attacker is almost always a man who seeks revenge by scarring. The acid, he hopes, will disfigure his victim’s face and consequently her life. It’s a crime calculated to shatter a woman physically and mentally. Society decrees that beauty is a superpower – specially for women. With acid, the perpetrator hopes to show his target who is boss. But Laxmi Agarwal, who was attacked by a stalker when she was only 15, refused to follow the script. Instead she filed a PIL and fought legal battles for years. Eventually the Supreme Court passed an order restricting and regulating the sale of acid in India.

Laxmi refers to herself as a survivor, not victim. This remarkable story is the inspiration for Chhapaak, in which Deepika Padukone plays Malti, a middle-class Delhi girl whose pleasantly ordinary life is wrecked by an acid attack. The film opens seven years after she's filed the PIL. As the case moves forward sluggishly, Malti struggles to find a job. But prospective employers don’t know how to work around her reconstructed face. The owner of a beauty parlour rejects her with – Beauty parlour main beauty na ho toh problem hoti hai. 

Director Meghna Gulzar presents the anguish of this in a low-key way. There is minimal drama. This is Malti’s life. But she doesn’t crumble. Malti soldiers on, stoically and sometimes, even with a smile. Chhapaak’s biggest success is that Deepika becomes Malti. Her commitment and conviction is complete. At no point do we feel that this is a superstar celebrated for her beauty, purposefully un-beautifying herself. Deepika infuses Malti with a quiet heroism. Her strength doesn’t require screaming.

The prosthetics by Clover Wootton, which alter as Malti undergoes seven surgeries, feel authentic. Right after the attack, the disfiguration is extreme but Meghna doesn’t linger on the horror. Instead, we get an aching scene in which Malti’s mother wordlessly bathes her burnt daughter. The visual reminded me of American photo-journalist W. Eugene Smith’s iconic photograph Tomoko Uemura in her Bath in which a Japanese mother lovingly bathes her daughter who suffers from Minamata disease, a type of mercury poisoning. The gentleness in the frame underlines the tragedy. Vikrant Massey is also lovely as Malti’s grumpy boss Amol.

Amol’s angry activism is tempered by Malti’s ability to find joy in the world. In one of the film’s best scenes, she reminds him that the acid was thrown on her, not him. Their love story is tender and delightfully cheeky. Madhurjeet Sarghi exudes understated strength as Malti’s lawyer Archana. But despite the strong performances, the film doesn’t feel urgent or alive enough. Who was Malti before the attack? What were her dreams? What did she enjoy? We have little sense of this until much later in the film. Which makes it difficult to emotionally invest in her in the way that this story requires. Chhapaak is powered by good intentions and progressive messaging but the film is undermined by a flawed screenplay. Written by Meghna and Atika Chohan, the narrative jumps back and forth in time. The action largely moves between Malti’s journey to recovery, her job at an NGO and her battles in court. The hopscotching is confusing and it doesn’t allow the characters to flourish. It also slackens the pace. Meghna’s grip on the material and consequently the audience becomes uneven.

Compare this to another film about an acid attack survivor – Uyare, released last year, in which Parvathy Thiruvothu plays the lead. Writers Bobby and Sanjay create a living, breathing portrait of a woman passionate about becoming a pilot. The dream is destroyed by her attacker – or so he thinks. But Pallavi refuses to let her circumstances defeat her. Like Malti, Pallavi is a hero but she is more layered. We see her seething rage, her desire for revenge, her bitterness. Malti doesn’t achieve this same dynamism. Meghna stages the attack with an unflinching gaze.

It’s devastating to watch the horror unfold so casually in a crowded market place The bystanders gaze as a woman’s face melts. The first time we see it, the rousing title song written by Gulzar saab and sung by Arijit Singh, plays. In scenes like this, the film rises to its full power. But there are also stretches in which disconnected events are strung together to make a larger point and Chhapaak hovers dangerously close to becoming a public service announcement. The messaging becomes bigger than the movie, which reduces the impact. There is enough to admire in Chhapaak. Be that as it may, I wish the film had taken the jumps that its protagonist did.