MELBOURNE, 13 March 2022: Badhaai Do (means ‘congratulate’ in English) is a soft but quirky attempt to present the Indian version of a ‘Lavender marriage’ (A lavender marriage is a male-female mixed-orientation marriage, undertaken as a marriage of convenience to conceal the socially stigmatized sexual orientation of one or both partners).
In this movie, instead of leaving their families a gay man who is a cop and a lesbian who is a PT teacher enter into a Lavender marriage to please their parents. Chaos soon ensues when the woman’s girlfriend, a pathologist, comes to live with the unlikely couple. After one year, the cop’s family wants the couple to have a baby. The rest of the movie is what happens next. Queer love is no more a taboo subject in Indian movies, though society remains indifferent or hostile from ‘Sanskari’ (traditionalist) people. The movie was released in India last month and numerous reviews have been positive. Netflix started streaming it on 11 March 2022.
Rajkumar Rao (Shardul Thakur) plays the cop and Bhumi Padnekar (Suman ‘Sumi’ Singh) is the PT teacher and Chum Darang (Rimjhim Jonkey) the PT teacher’s lesbian mate.
The introduction of a North-Eastern character (Chum Darang) is welcome. One wishes more Indian movies follow suit. All three give sterling performances. This is not a typical love story, so, these three main characters dominate the queer love game, laced with side characters who fulfill the supporting needs of the script.
The movie’s dialogues add to the queer ethos of the movie. They are soft, but at times sexist. For example, “…first night, single shot, job done” and “…un ke kul ka diya bhuja hua diya hi…”. In one scene Rajkumar Rao calls himself as ‘Homo cop’ and the talk where his brother in law explains him the importance of having a baby is done skillfully.
The scenes where Rajkumar Rao’s mum joins the couple to motivate them for having a baby are some of the movie’s best done scenes. And, the ensuing misconception of Rajkumar Rao being impotent and his family’s natural disbelive is a good example of a powerful script and acting. There is much more in the movie, which ends with a positive note. The message is clear – legalise adoption for queer couples. Love is of many types and those in it need to be treated as equal humans.
In India, queer marriage is not legal, though the relationship was ‘decriminalised’ by the Apex Court. De facto living is not illegal in India. Adoption remains a contensious issue. Director Harshvardhan Kulkarni (Hunterr, Hasee Toh Phasee, Apna Asmaan) needs ‘Badhaai’ for this rather lively-light movie with a message. Well done, everyone associated with this movie.
I give it 4 and half stars out of 5.
NAME– Badhaai Do
LANGUAGE– Hindi (Subtitles in English)
Duration – 2 Hours 27 minutes
Started streaming – 11 March, 2022
OTT platform – Netflix
Director – Harshvardhan Kulkarni
Actors – Rajkumar Rao, Bhumi Padnekar, Chum Darang etc.
Writing Credits – Suman Adhikary, Aayush Agrawal (idea), Akshat Ghildial
Harshavardhan Kulkarni (screenplay)
Genres – LGBTQ movie, Romantic comedy
Maturity rating – PG, Mild themes, coarse language, violence, sexulal refrences
