Movie Review – PadMan – by Suhel Johar

PadMan Appears To Be A Big Budget Social Service Campaign Film.

With so many films based on social messages these days, PadMan is another addition to that list. Akshay Kumar is currently on an Operation Clean-up Drive; PadMan is his second film after Toilet: Ek Prem Katha that deals with sanitation. Unfortunately, like in Toilet... and so in PadMan Akshay Kumar looks a bit old to play a newly married guy.

Through PadMan, R Balki tells the real life inspiring story of Arunachalam Muruganantham (played by Akshay Kumar), a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore, who introduced low cost sanitary napkins in India, despite the massive opposition and humiliation he was subjected to. While retaining the core of his courageous story, the director changes the film's setting to Maheshwar, Madhya Pradesh, though he could have named it any place in Mumbai since the characters sound so very Bambaiya.

Laxmikant Chauhan (Akshay Kumar) marries Gayatri (Radhika Apte) and it does not take him long to discover that his wife uses cloth during her menstrual cycle.  Concerned about his wife's hygiene, Laxmi urges her to ditch the cloth and opt for sanitary napkins. Gayatri is reluctant to go for disposable pads as they are expensive. Lakshmi who by now is obsessed over a 'ladies problem' tries to make low cost pads and gives them to his wife to try them but that make her cringe. After a few tries Gayatri realizes that the cloth is better than her husband’s experimentative pads and refuses to try them anymore.  

Meanwhile, Laxmi starts distributing sanitary pads among the women in the village but faces humiliation and rejection from everyone. He becomes the matter of concern for his ageing mother, two young sisters and wife too. Subjected to hostility for ruffling the religious and age-old beliefs of people around, the village panchayat asks him to leave the village while his mother and wife abandon him.

He leaves the village and his life changes upside down when he finally manages to invent a machine to manufacture low cost sanitary pads. Incidentally, he meets Pari (Sonam Kapoor), an aspiring MBA student from Delhi who decides to help him. What happens next forms the rest of the plot.

Given the constant mention of statistics pertaining to the inadequate percentage of women who use pads in India, and reiteration of the film's issue based motive, PadMan often seems like a Public Service Advertisement parading as a commercial film. In order to appeal to the lowest common denominator, things are over-explained and all of this results in a sluggish progression of events. The film is too preachy to watch especially the sloppy first half and becomes a boring rendition of a socially relevant tale. In portions, Balki struggles to maintain a balance as it's not easy to entertain, spread awareness and sensitize people about the issue, all at one go. His semi-humorous and urban outlook at a predominantly rural issue isn't seamless as the script often meanders. The film does pick up momentum in the second half but Pari’s infatuation with Laxmi towards the end ruins the tempo of the film which was moving along well. One of the major highlight of the film is Laxmi’s monologue towards the climax as he gives a lecture on his invention at the United Nations in New York. The film though does end on a positive note with a decent climax.

Menstruation is not an illness and access to menstrual hygiene is a must for every woman — the message is laudatory indeed. But such is the piety and virtue with which it is dealt that the art and craft of filmmaking is entirely sacrificed. And, although Akshay Kumar, producer Twinkle Khanna and director R. Balki have been touting the film as the first film that highlights the issue of menstrual hygiene but that that honour would go to a small budget film Phullu. It was reported that the small budget film was a victim of lobbying with Akshay Kumar sabotaging the promotion of Phullu. Even the Censor Board gave an A-certificate to Phullu. How can personal hygiene and menstrual cycle of women be an adult content? Ironically, PadMan, a film that is based on a similar subject has been certified with an U/A certificate. An absolute injustice done to a small budget film like Phullu.

This is one of R. Balki’s weakest film which mainly suffers due to some poor writing. The screenplay is convoluted and hackneyed. A good concept wasted due to some sloppy writing by R.Balki and Swanand Kirkire. Cinematography by P.C. Sreeram is okay while editing by Chandan Arora seems to be lagging and should have been crisper. Music by Amit Trivedi is average with Aaj Se Teri song as the standout track.

Performancewise, Akshay Kumar does his best to look convincing in his act but the age factor comes into play and you feel disconnected to his pain. Another thing that takes away from his portrayal is the lack of variation as an actor with a performance that is so similar to what he did in Jolly LLB 2 and Toilet Ek Prem Katha. For once Radhika Apte disappoints as an artiste. Sonam Kapoor with a limited set of expressions is no great shakes either. Amitabh Bachchan playing Amitabh Bachchan is good.  

On the whole, if government-sponsored public service ads suddenly got bigger production budgets, they would look a lot like PadMan.