Chhapaak

Deepika Padukone and Vikrant Massey deliver compelling performances, but Chhapaak isn't going to be an easy watch.

Chhapaak has some clunky execution and earnest speechifying, but its intention – to bring the crime of acid attacks to mainstream attention – is brave and commendable. This makes the movie hard to watch but also hard to turn away from. Chhapaak is needlessly uneven and sluggish at times, but it's most powerful when it keeps things simple and stays on course.

CHHAPAAK is a brave attempt at highlighting an issue and the crime that exists in our society. At the box office, it will have a difficult journey since it is not a commercial entertainer. Its business will be restricted to a tiny section of the multiplex frequenting audience.

Chhapaak avoids these traps: neither does it have a victim syndrome, nor does it suffer from a saviour complex. This is Deepika Padukone's show. The actor shows terrific control over her craft and disappears into the character. Barring the hastily put Arijit Singh songs which interject more than they interpret, Chhapaak is a quietly powerful social commentary, a film that never allows you to be comfortable.

In spite of its flaws, however, Gulzar keeps her firm hold on the subject while the richly expressive performance of Padukone combines to make this film an essential watch. In the end, 'Chhapaak' may fall short to an incredible experience, but it will certainly leave you agitated, more aware and strangely hopeful.

Chhapaak means well, no doubt, but the screenplay is surprisingly thin – surprising because of Meghna's brilliance with Raazi and Talvar. Combine that with plotline weaknesses, an excessive effort to stay low key and the unexpected shot at being a conformist fairytale in the end, and the result is a film that seems curiously detached from its heroine, despite the devastating true story that inspired it.

Chhapaak is a story that makes you sob and smile at the same time. It's a sensitive, brave and gut-wrenching story that's not easy to watch, but definitely worth telling.

The film is an earnest and urgent look at the horror that is acid violence. The issue looms over the film, which does well by the subject without transcending it.

Chhapaak isn't some extraordinary, eye-opening film with performances to go ga-ga over. But that takes nothing away from how well-made the film is for a subject like acid attack that deserves our attention. Everyone, from writer Atika Chohan to director Meghna Gulzar to the actors, Deepika Padukone, Vikrant Massey and others, play their parts well, thus delivering a film that makes a splash which should have some kind of a ripple effect.

Deepika is exceptional, her speech and body language closely matching Laxmi's; the understated performance builds up Malti as a quiet force, difficult to subdue despite how fragile she seems. Chhapaak is neither a happy weekend watch nor a film on 'woman empowerment' headlined by a male star. But it's a film that deserves to be watched because it forces us to look at a reality that only appears as a tiny column in the newspaper, and it's good cinema.

Director Meghna Gulzar and Indian superstar Deepika Padukone are affecting without excess in this fact-based drama about the aftermath of a horrible crime. If you're up for a conventional yet compelling tale of an exceptional young woman who overcomes brutish mistreatment and regains control of her destiny, you won't miss the usual song-and-dance at all.