25 years of Indian Cinema | 2017: A humdinger of a year for small films with a big heart

Alankrita Srivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha was also a film filled with the texture of the place it is set in. Four women in Bhopal, different circumstances, struggling with difficult circumstances. Ratna Pathak Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Ahana Kumar, Plabita Borthakur work well together to break the patriarchy.

Ayushmann Khurrana and Kriti Sanon in Bareilly Ki Barfi.

Two actors-well-on-their-way-to-stardom, Rajkummar Rao and Ayushmann Khurrana, teamed up with Kriti Sanon, also now a star in her own right, to create a small-town romantic triangle laced with humour. Bareilly Ki Barfi has both the feel of the town, and the sweetness of the mithai in the title.

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And Ayushmann Khurrana goes it alone in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, also ‘small-town’ but this one a truly different sort of love story: what happens when erectile dysfunction– hawww, did we hear that right– threatens to ruin a nai-nai shaadi? Will it turn into barbaadi? Khurrana and his dulhan Bhumi Pednekar go round and round the mulberry bush, and finally find an answer.

Gurgaon and G Kutta Se, both different-but-similar, both powerful features about life in a satellite town of the NCR (National Capital Region), both revolving around zar, zoru, zameen, male entitlement, patriarchy, misogyny. Shanker Raman and Rahul Dahiya direct with fierce authenticity; the first got Pankaj Tripathi one of his first lead roles in the movies.

Pankaj Tripathi has another striking part in Amit V Masurkar’s Newton, one of the most biting political satires in recent Hindi cinema, starring Rajkummar Rao as a low-level babu who holds on to his essential decency in the face of experiences which could have flipped him over. Another film I love, for what it says, and how it says it.

Irrfan Khan and Saba Qamar in Hindi Medium.

And Irrfan Khan plays the romantic fool in Tanuja Chandra’s Qarib Qarib Singlle, paired with Parvathy, a love story whose endearing leads have found a permanent place in my heart. Irrfan also got his first solo super-hit with Hindi Medium (breaking into the 100 crore club), in which he plays an Old Dilliwala trying to find his feet in South Delhi, while trying to get his daughter admitted in an English medium school.

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Of the other big hits–Tiger Zinda Hai, Golmaal, Raees, Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Secret Superstar, Kaabil, Badrinath Ki Dulhaniya, Judwa 2– only Toilet claimed difference in its plot point– the importance of toilets in rural homes– but the treatment was same superstar heavy, with Akshay Kumar as lead, along with Bhumi Pednekar.