Padman Movie Review: Akshay Kumar Delivers A Powerful Social Message With A Punch!

Padman Movie Review: Akshay Kumar Delivers A Powerful Social Message With A Punch!
Director : R. Balki
Cast:  Akshay Kumar, Radhika Apte, Sonam Kapoor

Review by Shweta Parande

It's time for the much awaited and talked about Akshay Kumar movie Padman, which the Bollywood actor has produced with his wife, Twinkle Khanna, the actor-turned-interior designer and renowned columnist-author. We have seen how Twinkle has brought about a huge positive change in the actor's career and his perspective towards life. That he agreed to make a film based on menstruation and also star in it as the leading 'Padman' is still a huge step for an actor earlier known purely as an action star and a ladies man.

Let's see what Padman is all about. As a woman, when you go in for watching Padman, you know what to expect. At least a lot of it, since it is to do with menstruation, its taboos and how women in India deal with it. It is also the true story of a man named Arunachalam Muruganantham who revolutionised the sanitary napkins industry in rural India by making cost effective pads for women, for which he was initially ostracised in his village and by his family. Twinkle Khanna has included his story in her second book, The Legend of Lakshmi Prasad.

Story

Padman begins on a happy note with a song, showing the wedding of Lakshmikant Chauhan (Akshay Kumar) with Gayatri (Radhika Apte). As they say, after getting married, a man and a woman both get to know of things they didn't know about. And so our to-be Padman comes to know of the difficulties women face while menstruating, through his wife who uses a soiled, dirty old cloth for those five days of the month. She also stays away in a separate room in the house.

Lakshmi gets a packet of pads for his wife, which she refuses to use, as it is expensive. She does not mind spending the same amount of money to get 'prasad' at a local temple, though. Such is the life of us Indians.

Lakshmi's mind begins working overtime and he thinks of innovative ways to make an economical pad for his wife. But the taboo and superstitions come in the way. He is estranged from his family, and how he overcomes it and becomes a Padma Shri-winning innovator, and who helps him do it, forms the rest of the story of Padman.

Performances

Akshay Kumar shines as the Padman. His exceptional scene is where he tries the sanitary pad himself, with blood used from a butcher. His pants are stained with blood and the village thinks he has some rog or disease. But he doesn't give up.

By now we are used to seeing Akshay giving restrained performances in his true-to-life movies. In Padman, the highlight is the scene depicting his speech at the United Nations headquarters in New York. He is super good and one listens in rapt attention. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about the film. 

Radhika Apte is perfect as the rural wife in terms of her look and mannerisms. She could have worked on her diction, as her Marathi accent is strong at some places whereas Gayatri belongs to the Hindi heartland of Madhya Pradesh.

Sonam Kapoor is cool as the tabla-playing MBA student who identifies the potential in Lakshmi's innovation and helps him be recognised in the world and in his village. Sonam's performance is not over the top neither is it too heartfelt. She is just portraying a normal, intelligent city girl and one finds her performance to be in the humble territory. She is not at all trying to hog the limelight here. But some people are not liking her act.

As a film in its entirety, Padman may not be entertaining enough and the first half is rather slow. The second half packs in a lot through fast-paced scenes and some background music to help. But the real messages in the film are not in its entirety. They are in small scenes like how a man cannot go and buy pads for his wife, and how the chemist wraps it in paper and gives it to him, as if it were drugs or something unscrupulous.

Will men go at all to watch this film? Considering the topic, many cities in India may not see male friends or the entire family going in to see a film about a subject that will continue to be hush-hush.

The Padman box office collections are likely to be affected because of this mindset, a challenge Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna accepted by throwing open a Padman challenge on social media where one posed with a sanitary napkin and challenged friends to do the same. Social media was abuzz with many male actors like Aamir Khan, Anil Kapoor and a lot of the younger ones posing with a pad, something absolutely unthinkable just two years ago. Even if helping Akshay Kumar for promotion, it is a big thing.

But the challenge being a rage on social media may not translate to footfalls in theatres, considering a documentary called Menstrual Man has already been made on A Muruganantham. There was also a movie called Phullu tackling the topic recently, and some regional films, too. It's the first time that a superstar in Bollywood has dared to make a movie on periods. Having said that, Akshay and Twinkle benefited from a readymade story of a man who went about making cheaper sanitary pads to make life for his wife, sisters and other women better.

R Balki is known to have directed gems like Cheeni Kum, Paa, Shamitabh and Ki and Kaa. But Padman seems like a film with just a little bit of a touch of the maestro. The 'adman' it seems may have been in two minds how much of the real story should be manipulated to add fiction. The cinematography by PC Sreeram is awesome but the film seems like a documentary in part, trying to tell a true story.

After Padman, Akshay Kumar continues his social genre films after Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. But that was the Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It will be interesting to see with what mindset men are going into theatres to watch Padman. Is it intrigue? Curiosity? Empathy? Or is it to understand their wife, daughter or mother better with what they go through every month? Or will they go at all?

Padman will help in eradicating the taboo related to menstruation to a certain extent. But how many people in rural India will watch it? Will there be special shows for the panchayats? One aspect that Padman should've covered was - 'What is menstruation and why does it happen'. This would have been a text-bookish lesson but would've taken the film to another level. Look at Aamir Khan's Dangal or PK and its lessons.

Padman releases this Friday, February 9, 2018 in theatres.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5