Lipstick Under My Burkha movie review: Alankrita Srivastava directed Lipstick Under My Burkha is a film which revolves around the lives of four women residing in the dilapidated Hawai Manzil in Bhopal, with each of the four women living their lives under different conditions at various stages in their lives. Usha Parmar known as Buajee (played by Ratna Pathak Shah), a widow is the matriarch of the crumbling building. Usha’s favourite pastime is reading romantic novels, which have ignited a strong desire for a male companion in her life. Shirin (played by Konkona Sen Sharma) is another woman staying in the building whose husband, Rahim (played by Sushant Singh) works in Saudi Arabia. She secretly works as a saleswoman and is quite good at her job, but has to keep this aspect of her life a secret from her husband Rahim who thinks that wives are useful strictly to bear and rear offspring and has a ‘Biwi ho, biwi ki tarah hi raho’ attitude.
The other two women around whom the movie revolves are the much younger Rehana and Leela. Rehana (played by Plabita Borthakur) is a college going girl whose parents force her to wear a burkha. Rehana hates wearing the burkha. She also hides her love for music from her family members and is a kleptomaniac. And lastly Leela (played by Aahana Kumar) is the most rebellious of the four women and is in love with Arshad (Vikrant Massey), but her mother has arranged her marriage with another man.
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The film targets the patriarchal mindset prevalent in the Indian society. The direction provided in the film by Alankrita Srivastava moves between the stories of the four women seamlessly. The characters played in the movies and the situations they are involved in seem very real. The film, very nicely, focuses on some of the problems faced by women in the country and does not sound preachy while raising important points about patriarchy.
How effective the film is in passing on the message is something else of course, but that would be revealing too much.
Rating **
