Denji28

The actor/director tried so many things and worked so hard but does he really needed to? In filmmaking there is no one to tell you not to do it or to do it you just do it for yourself because you want to.

I wish everyone else in the film did 20% of what Padmaraj Rajgopal Nair did. I expected better from Upendra Limaye. But maybe it's just the fault of the writer of the film or director who is also the main lead and producer, production designer, choreographer and costume designer of this film. He wanted to do it all and he did it all.

The film does look so good I mean I won't believe you if you tell me this was shot in Maharashtra. Padmaraj Rajgopal Nair acted his heart out and the transformation was unbelievable, it really breaks your heart in the end when you see him after the transformation.

But in the end it was streched and it could've been 15-20 minutes shorter.

I have heard that when Fandry released in 2013 there was this wave in Marathi film industry to make films like Fandry and lots of movies were made with that in mind and majority of those films failed but Sthal is an exception which has worked pretty good.

After watching Sthal it felt like something I needed to watch on Women's day. It was filled with good performances by non-actors so some here and there in few scenes is expected but still they all did a good job especially the main lead and her father. The thing which stood out to me the most was the production design and cinematography. The way they have captured the village in Maharashtra and the small details of the behaviour of people living in it is praise worthy. The writing did felt off at times, like they explored so much subplots/characters and the ending was not great but still hard hitting. The first half is filled with funny and beautiful moments but somewhere the second half could've been better still Sthal is one of the best film came out of Marathi film industry in recent times. I can see this being one of my favourite film's of the year 2025.

Inspired from Ugramm/Salaar, what it lacks is the good performances. Sharad Kelkar the main lead is so bad, the way he says the dialogues feels like he is reading them not saying them (haven't got out of his dubbing era I guess *which he was good at). Sanjay Narvekar looked good in trailer but he did it too much in the movie. The only good performance was of Santosh Juvekar he was good, but sometimes getting surrounded by bad performances makes your performance look okish. Also they could've used the Chhaya Kadam's character more in the story.

The thing which got me excited to watch this was the brutal action which was good but again Sharad Kelkar was not made for this role.

The editing was horrible they added those TV serial effects in between character introductions and action scenes. The bgm was a joke. It was a headache to sit though this.