Choked

Choked is a unique kind of movie directed by Anurag Kashyap. With demonetization as a backdrop, Choked explores the power struggle at every level - including those who belongs to middle-class.

It's all about dreams and aspiration of a middle class Maharashtrian family. The performance were good, but not great. The movie could have been much stronger with more tight screenplay. Choked is smart, but not smart enough that mildly satisfied the depth and struggles of a middle-class family.

Choked had much higher expectation, being an Anurag Kashyap film. But the movie had just enough qualities and moments that didn't disappointed.

My Rating : 3/5

Choked. Anurag Kashyap.2020 The film movie ever made keeping the illustrious "Demonetization" in the main plot. The film has exceedingly well written first half, neatly expressed empathy between the couple, chemistry with inquisitive neighbors but somehow it misses the mark at the very end. The last 15 minutes of the film looks more like a patch then a proper fulfillment to a well-made thriller. Saiyami Kher is excellent in her role as a disappointed, vulnerable and ambitious bank employee. Choked runs heavily on the traditional background score but in some places it airs a tad loud. Choked metaphorically means various things in the film from corruption to a not so happy relationship and from doomed future to current condition of the country.

This film might get an extremely polar reviews for some of its political stand and approach against the current government. It's an extremely well sanitized and different version of Kashyap.

Of all things, Anurag Kashyap's Choked will be remembered for its end-to-end middle-class Marathi household detailing. Saiyami Kher portrays bank teller Sarita Pillai, wife of (loafer, carrom-playing husband) Sushant Pillai (Roshan Mathew), in an extremely believable manner. It's evident in the body language, the dressing style, and even her transient expressions. Mathew is also quite impressive in his Bollywood debut, playing a struggling musician who speaks broken Tamil when irritated.

At first, I found it difficult to digest the fact that Mathew plays the father of a school-going kid in the film. But the writing in these bits is solid. Both the characters are given the kind of texture you'd expect in a Kashyap movie, sans the darkness. The exchanges between husband and wife, some of which seem improvised, hit the bullseye, especially in the first half. This is a film with a lot of supporting characters, primarily owing to its setting. The dingy apartment building and its surrounding premises are home to many a party-and-gossip-loving aunty with first world (homemaker) problems, nosy neighbours, and a large sum of unaccounted money.

I liked the set up of the premise. The depiction of Sarita's hum-drum daily life and the despair associated with it is a shining example of writing and crafting going hand in hand. The recurring shots of the door being locked and the light being switched off convey the monotony strikingly well. Once the husband-wife dynamic is neatly established, the story moves on to its pivotal incident - Sarita finding neatly packed bundles of currency popping out of her clogged kitchen sink. Equate this with 2016's demonetization and you have an interesting hook.

While the satirical bits around demonetization work (especially if you're in line with Kashyap's politics), the thrills fail to match up. Some subplots (about a laundering scheme and the reason behind Sarita feeling "choked" often) don't work to great effect. The finale looks like it was re-written to make it seem like just another feel-good flick. It just doesn't sit well with what we've known Kashyap for. Or maybe, I simply expect too much from him.

The movie never really took off. Characters were not given any depth. Quite honestly was very disappointed.

Nothing impressive.. very dull and slow movie... Acting is good but storyline is not good