Sharpshooting women who break cultural barriers in India are irresistible leads in this crowd-pleasing film.
Based on the remarkable true story of Chandro Tomar and Prakashi Tomar, in-laws from a rural village in Uttar Pradesh, Saand Ki Aankh hits every imaginable button in the biopic genre. That the film remains so entertaining despite its conventional plot line, limited budget and leisurely pacing is a testament to the filmmakers’ respect for their subjects. And to the subjects themselves, who are a true inspiration.
The movie opens in 1999, as Chandro (Bhumi Pednekar) and Prakashi (Taapsee Pannu) wait hand and foot on their husbands, and on Rattan Singh (Prakash Jha), leader of a clan that has grown to some thirty offspring over three decades. Forced to work in the fields all day, then cook and clean for men who spend their time smoking and reading, the wives have no outlet for their own dreams and desires.
Flashing back to 1975, director Tushar Hiranandani shows how Prakashi joined the clan as a timid newlywed, and the bond she forged with Chandro. We see Rattan as an overbearing misogynist opposed to anything modern. He halts a village screening of Mother India when two characters embrace, smashes Prakashi’s sewing machine when she makes pants for her daughter Shefali (Sara Arjun), and cruelly denies any equality for women.
Yashpal (Vineet Kumar), the village doctor, builds a shooting range in an effort to find work for local children. (The government sponsors sports programs and training camps that can lead to jobs for successful athletes.) Chandro and Prakashi both take up target practice in part to encourage their daughters Shefali and Seema (Pritha Bakshi) to find lives outside the compound. Instead, the two mothers discover they have a natural talent for shooting.
Yashpal brings them to a shooting competition in a nearby town. Opponents and spectators alike laugh at their outfits, until the women lift their veils and win every match. Soon they are competing in other cities, lying to their husbands that they are visiting shrines instead.
Within four years they have amassed hundreds of medals, as well as winning the friendship of Mahendra Kumari (Nikhat Khan), the Queen of Alwar. But at any moment they realize their husbands could discover their secret lives.
And in fact Prakashi and Chandro are punished horribly in the second half of the movie. There are dark undercurrents throughout Saand Ki Aankh that will mean more to Indian viewers than US audiences. The two wives aren’t just afraid of physical beatings, although watching them flinch in front of Rattan speaks to universal fears. His threats to dismember the wives or throw them into a well aren’t empty ones — they’re echoed by current events in India.
The movie’s themes of empowerment may seem obvious in the US, but they are radical in a culture where women have no voice. Saand Ki Aankh addresses them in quiet and logical rather than fiery ways. The movie’s steady, nonthreatening tone and the script’s (by Balwinder Janjua) strict focus on Chandro and Prakashi have the effect of easing past the truly revolutionary ideas presented here.
Hiranandani shows a fluent visual style, especially in the opening passages that circle around and through the Singh compound. But the shooting competitions lack tension, and all seem to be taking place in the same small space. The musical numbers are a bit lackluster.
Bhumi Pednekar and Taapsee Pannu are excellent in roles that require them to age twenty-five years and don unsightly prosthetics. They have a wonderful chemistry together, and take clear delight in manipulating the men around them to their own goals. Watching their characters use Rattan’s own prejudices and bigotry to outwit him never grows old.
Reliance Entertainment is opening Saand Ki Aankh (which translates roughly as “Bullseye”) on October 25 for the Diwali holiday. The filmmakers and distributors are clearly hoping for the success the wrestling biopic Dangal (2016) achieved, and in fact that film’s star Aamir Khan gets a credit and actually appears briefly here.
