‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ review in photos: A gritty battle between classes

What’s the film about: ‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ is a slow-burn black comedy about two people who belong to different worlds forced to flee together to save their skin. Sandeep (Parineeti Chopra), belongs to the upper crust banking world, while her reluctant runaway buddy Pinky (Arjun Kapoor), represents the lower rung of a deeply divided India with glaring economic and class inequalities. He’s uncouth and unlikeable at first, while she’s sophisticated on the outside with a shady back story.

Their mutual disdain and resentment for each other is palpable from the word go. He’s a desperate Harayanvi constable who takes on a job to revoke the year-long suspension handed down by his boss, while she is an educated economic gold medallist with questionable taste in men and work ethics. Her fancy clothes, fancier designer bags, scarlet lips, and manicured nails are in sharp contrast to Pinky’s scruffy and grumpy persona. The movie is a deft take on class warfare and social inequities but struggles to hold those tenuous threads together.

What I loved about the film: Parineeti Chopra is compelling as the tainted corporate honcho Sandeep Walia. With effortless ease, she’s a textbook elitist who brings a perfectly veiled sense of privilege, entitlement, and frustration when her precious life unravels at a rapid pace.

Actor Arjun Kapoor also holds his ground as a highly unlikeable violence-prone cop. His bottled-up rage and angst at the unfair world at large and fierce women like Chopra, in particular, is well captured. The dark side of humanity fuelled by greed and desire is explored with a deft hand by director Dibakar Banerjee. Though the two leads belong to two different, disparate worlds, their unlikely kinship doesn’t feel staged.

Veteran actors like Raghubir Yadav and Neena Gupta (pictured), as a cantankerous but endearing small-town ageing couple, bring a certain kind of warmth into this film. They are like a ray of sunshine in the otherwise dreary existences of Pinky and Sandeep, who are dodging bullets and a corrupt police force single-handedly. Banerjee also brings an authenticity to the scenes set in a town bordering Nepal. But he doesn’t use the lens of a tourist to make the hill-station and its locals endearing. While small-town tales are becoming woke in Bollywood films, their inhabitants aren’t portrayed with broad strokes. Just because they live in small towns doesn’t insulate them from human frailties.

The climax of the film is intriguing and you have to admire the talents and the director for not copping out. For a change, the lead players in a Bollywood film don’t fall hopelessly in love and live happily ever after. It’s a brave and pragmatic ending. Just like how life isn’t perfect, their lives don’t magically improve either by the end of two hours. Something is heartening and deeply satisfying about two surly souls finding a sliver of happiness in their different ways. The dark humour plays out well in many scenes. The parts in which Sandeep’s designer bag becomes emblematic of her privilege are hilariously showcased.

What I disliked about the film: The pace of ‘SAPF’ is languid and it takes time for a viewer to piece the story together. While on the upside, the actors and the director don’t spoon-feed their audience, the edgy story loses its momentum arbitrarily. The cat and mouse game becomes repetitive and tedious. But just when you are about to give up, its lead players yank you back into the film with an unexpected plot twist. While Chopra’s character has a better back story, Kapoor’s lowly and expendable existence would have benefited from more depth. You may also have to suspend belief in how these two manage to be on the run with such efficiency, despite having limited resources. This film had the potential to be a resounding slap on patriarchy and privilege but loses its steam midway when the story begins getting complicated. A lot is going on in this film, so don’t beat yourself if themes around scams, sexual assault, surly men, capitalist greed, and individual greed overwhelm you.

My final say: ‘Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar’ is a compelling one-time watch powered by strong performances. But be patient as the film takes its time to warm up and worm your way into your hearts. Plus, watch out for the play on the colour pink in this dark satire and thriller. Stars: 3 out of 5.