What does Chhapaak mean?
It’s the phonetic sound of a splash.
It’s what you hear when acid hits skin.
The recipient is routinely a woman and the
attacker is almost always a man who seeks
revenge by scarring.
The acid, he hopes, will disfigure his victim’s
face and consequently her life.
It’s a crime calculated to shatter a woman
physically and mentally.
Society decrees that beauty is a superpower
– specially for women.
With acid, the perpetrator hopes 
to show his target who is boss.
But Laxmi Agarwal, who was attacked 
by a stalker when she was only 15,
refused to follow the script.
Instead she filed a PIL 
and fought legal battles for years.
Eventually the Supreme Court 
passed an order
restricting and regulating 
the sale of acid in India.
Laxmi refers to herself as a survivor, 
not victim.
This remarkable story is 
the inspiration for Chhapaak,
in which Deepika Padukone plays Malti, 
a middle-class Delhi girl
whose pleasantly ordinary life 
is wrecked by an acid attack.
The film opens seven years 
after she's filed the PIL.
As the case moves forward sluggishly, 
Malti struggles to find a job.
But prospective employers don’t know how
to work around her reconstructed face.
The owner of a beauty parlour 
rejects her with –
Beauty parlour main beauty na ho 
toh problem hoti hai.
Director Meghna Gulzar presents 
the anguish of this in a low-key way.
There is minimal drama.
This is Malti’s life.
But she doesn’t crumble.
Malti soldiers on, stoically and sometimes,
even with a smile.
Chhapaak’s biggest success is that 
Deepika becomes Malti.
Her commitment and conviction is complete.
At no point do we feel that this is 
a superstar celebrated for her beauty,
purposefully un-beautifying herself.
Deepika infuses Malti with a quiet heroism.
Her strength doesn’t require screaming.
The prosthetics by Clover Wootton, which alter
as Malti undergoes seven surgeries, feel authentic.
Right after the attack, 
the disfiguration is extreme
but Meghna doesn’t linger on the horror.
Instead, we get an aching scene in which Malti’s
mother wordlessly bathes her burnt daughter.
The visual reminded me of American photo-journalist
W. Eugene Smith’s iconic photograph
Tomoko Uemura in her Bath in which 
a Japanese mother lovingly bathes her daughter
who suffers from Minamata disease, 
a type of mercury poisoning.
The gentleness in the frame 
underlines the tragedy.
Vikrant Massey is also lovely as 
Malti’s grumpy boss Amol.
Amol’s angry activism is tempered by 
Malti’s ability to find joy in the world.
In one of the film’s best scenes, she reminds
him that the acid was thrown on her, not him.
Their love story is tender 
and delightfully cheeky.
Madhurjeet Sarghi exudes understated strength
as Malti’s lawyer Archana.
But despite the strong performances, the film
doesn’t feel urgent or alive enough.
Who was Malti before the attack?
What were her dreams? 
What did she enjoy?
We have little sense of this 
until much later in the film.
Which makes it difficult to emotionally invest
in her in the way that this story requires.
Chhapaak is powered by good intentions 
and progressive messaging
but the film is undermined 
by a flawed screenplay.
Written by Meghna and Atika Chohan, 
the narrative jumps back and forth in time.
The action largely moves between Malti’s
journey to recovery, her job at an NGO
and her battles in court.
The hopscotching is confusing and it doesn’t
allow the characters to flourish.
It also slackens the pace.
Meghna’s grip on the material and consequently
the audience becomes uneven.
Compare this to another film about an acid
attack survivor – Uyare, released last year,
in which Parvathy Thiruvothu 
plays the lead.
Writers Bobby and Sanjay create a living,
breathing portrait of a woman
passionate about becoming a pilot.
The dream is destroyed by her attacker – 
or so he thinks.
But Pallavi refuses to let her circumstances
defeat her.
Like Malti, Pallavi is a hero 
but she is more layered.
We see her seething rage, her desire for revenge,
her bitterness.
Malti doesn’t achieve this same dynamism.
Meghna stages the attack 
with an unflinching gaze.
It’s devastating to watch the horror unfold
so casually in a crowded market place.
The bystanders gaze as a woman’s face melts.
The first time we see it,
the rousing title song written by Gulzar saab 
and sung by Arijit Singh, plays.
In scenes like this, the film rises to 
its full power.
But there are also stretches in which 
disconnected events are strung together
to make a larger point
and Chhapaak hovers dangerously close
to becoming a public service announcement.
The messaging becomes bigger than the movie,
which reduces the impact.
There is enough to admire in Chhapaak.
But I wish the film had taken the leaps 
that its protagonist did.
