Okay, very simple - after years of marriage, a man finds out his wife cheated on him and that the boy he raised and considered his son is not his biological child. The film addresses gender inequality with stress on the unbearable double standard with which the sins of men and women are treated by the hypocrite male-dominated society. In this regard, this film's standpoint is quite refreshing, but then, not enough. Firstly, the film makes great efforts to emphasise how wrong it was on the wife's part specifically because she is a woman. And then a big leap is taken to almost legitimize adultery. One must remember, the husband's regressive views notwithstanding, the wife's actions are purely unacceptable. That she has made a mistake in a moment of weakness and decided to hide it is understandable, but that she had a son from this extramarital affair and kept it a secret for decades from her unsuspecting husband - much less so. But then the balance is there and it's well thought out.
I thoroughly enjoyed Mahesh Manjrekar's Astitva. There is conflict here, a great moral one, and the viewers must have conflicting views when confronted by the story and its well-formed foundation. I liked the fact that the film didn't turn the husband into a complete antagonist in order to convey its feminist message. There are some glitches here and there, mostly technical, in terms of dubbing and sound, but the film works. It is simple and realistic and works as both a human story and a psychological, suspenseful drama. Astitva greatly benefits from Tabu's presence and her extraordinarily brave performance for that time. She is highly nuanced and believable, and her monologue by the end of the film is brilliant, in terms of both writing and dialogue and especially in view of her acting and conviction in it. Sachin Khedekar is effective, and so is Mohnish Bahl. It is the appearance of Namrata Shirodkar which is a bit of a stretch, but the film is still concluded well, and kudos to Tabu anyway.
