Piku : A film about motion and emotion

Director : Shoojit Sircar

Writer : Juhi Chaturvedi

Starring : Deepika Padukone, Amitabh Bachchan, Irrfan Khan, Moushumi Chatterjee, Jisshu Sengupta, Raghubir Yadav and many more

This 2015 film called *Piku* would be one of my answers if I were to be asked to name my top four on Letterboxd, and let me tell you why.

The first time I watched this film, I was an 8-year-old kid who had barely begun to understand herself. By the time I was done with it, I remember feeling overjoyed because of how ordinary it was. It didn’t show an overly fake family but instead one like mine. Because, as an 8-year-old, I didn’t have the brain capacity to completely understand it, I watched it again recently, and it made me feel seen somehow.

In the beginning, we are introduced to the father-daughter relationship of Piku (Deepika Padukone) and Bhaskor (Amitabh Bachchan). The sometimes comical, always disruptive force of Piku’s father, consumed by paranoia about an empty stomach and death, is reliant on the bidding of his daughter. Throughout the film, her life is mediated by the constant interruptions of her worried and screaming father. Her social life takes a backseat while she deals with the constant yapping and complaining of Bhaskor.

The main plot of the film revolves around the selling of their ancestral home in Kolkata, which leads them to take a road trip with Rana (a favorite of mine, played by Irrfan Khan).

The chemistry between Piku and Rana is something subtle, which makes it all the more interesting. All the moments they share, from traveling together for almost 50 hours, quarrels over the phone, and the badminton rackets to the Kolkata egg roll, made me giggle and smile like crazy. One of my favorite Piku and Rana moments is when Rana is forced to fix the water pump while Piku holds a torch for him, and their conversation goes as follows:

Piku: Bohot irritating ho na main? Rana: Meri tolerance kafi high hai.

This film deserves all the appreciation for its direction, the way the characters are written, the portrayal of Kolkata, the father-daughter dynamic, and its realness. But one thing that is less talked about is the costume styling for Deepika’s character. Ranging from palazzo pants with a long kurta to drop-dead gorgeous cotton sarees paired with kajal and a bindi, it definitely had my attention.

While *Piku* isn’t a feminist trailblazer, it does expose the bare skin of stories that move away from the clichéd Bollywood romance. With a feminist father who isn’t afraid to admit his daughter’s sexual independence and a man like Rana who doesn’t hesitate to let Piku know that her father may be selfish, this film definitely altered something in the brain of 8-year-old me.

While I love the whole story of Bhaskor and Piku, Rana’s life isn’t any less fascinating. With a loud mother and fiery sister who exist in this multiverse of chaos without any explanation of their backgrounds, they add a little zing to the film.

The film’s beauty lies in the fact that it is not moralistic and never preachy. There is no glaring, poorly done social commentary, nor are the women of the film seen delivering sermons against the status quo—the beauty of cinema isn’t rooted in didactic monologues but in the plain existence of difficult women. *Piku* doesn’t vilify this difficulty; it presents us with the alternate reality of many women hardened by their daily routines, and they exist as is—this existence isn’t accentuated or double-quoted, and little to no attention is drawn to its criticism. The film’s appeal lies in how it delicately deals with the lives of daughters and women, split right in the middle.

P.S - During the closing scene, when Piku finds out that Syed ( a potential future partner) had the same health issues with her father, her reaction along with the background score had me rolling on the floor in a laughing fit.

(Shoutout to whoever was responsible for the background musical score throughout the movie, you did a great job.)