Interesting concept but ultimately a lame, melodramatic satire…

The dialogues’ are clunky, the plot points are convenient and characters’ motivations, well, who are we kidding? The biggest disappointment in Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho is that unlike other mediocre Bollywood films, it held a lot of promise; it could have said so much and so easily about the kind of people we are slowly becoming, about us being buffoons living gratuitously serious lives. But then Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho is not the first film to have got lost in the haze between intent and execution.

…is a thought-provoking tale which takes you through the current struggles in the Indian countryside. The satire is subtle and makes you think. If you’re in the mood for substance cinema and are tired of masala flicks, you need to catch this show over the weekend.

From religious manipulation to gender politics to caste dominance, it reminds of the bizarre forms unbridled power can take. And Arjun’s parents and grandmother reflect the helplessness in face of this brute collation of political and money power without getting melodramatic.

Its dystopic feel reminds of Manish Jha’s “Matrubhumi”.

The satire is seems confidently put across at first but then becomes illogical and unwieldy. Kapri is aiming for a tragicomedy about rural India, but some of his visuals are straight out of a horror movie.