If there is one word that can describe my experience watching Section 375, that word would be uncomfortable. That however doesn't imply that this movie is bad by any stretch of imagination. On the contrary, I found it to be excellent and recommend everyone to watch it, however uncomfortable it might it be.
The movie navigates a rape case from its inception to its verdict. Akshaye Khanna and Richa Chaddha lead the cast and play the role of lawyers, representing the accused and the victim respectively. In one of the introductory scenes, Khanna is shown explaining the difference between law & justice. Rape is an extremely serious, unforgivable and delicate issue affecting India and the rest of the world. There have been multiple movies depicting stories & tribulations of rape victims which take us through their journey in seeking justice.
This movie is not quite that. Rather, the movie takes a step back and introduces some formerly unexplored nuances emerging in a rape case & showcases the perspective of the accuser, which makes the movie an extremely uncomfortable watch. I expected the movie to have a divisive reception, and after browsing through some critic and user reviews, I was right. Some reviews tagged the movie as being misogynistic. I honestly don't agree with this sentiment. Though the movie ventures into really controversial territories, I still found the movie to be an earnest and unbiased attempt at depicting what it was trying to. I feel this is an excellent movie and recommend everyone to try it out and form your own opinion.
Let's get back to the review itself. Almost right away, the audience is presented with the rape scene. The accuser is a film director, played by Rahul Bhat and the victim is a young girl helping with the film's costumes, played by Meera Chopra. You know what has happened from the get go; but do you really? The rest of the film navigates through that and makes us question our preconceptions. Throughout the film, you are presented with alternating scenarios of this scene which makes you question what really happened. The way these different scenarios are presented immediately reminded me of Meghna Gulzar's fantastic Talwar.
The performances are good. Rahul Bhat as the accuser does a good job and so does Meera Chopra as the victim. Richa Chaddha is reliable as always and does what she can with what she is given. And that is my biggest gripe with this film. The movie for some reason never really dives deeper into her character. Even in the courtroom, she is usually shown as being reactive rather than proactive trying to object what the opposing lawyer is bringing up, most of the time being overruled by the judges. Similarly, the opposing lawyer gets multiple scenes outside the courtroom walking us through his mind and how the case is affecting his life. We get none of this with Richa, and that is very disappointing.
The movie also has some production rough edges, especially with editing. The transition between scenes was too jarring sometimes to overlook. Sandhya Mridul plays the opposing lawyers wife and her character feels unidimensional and merely a means an entity to reflect the protagonist's thoughts. Kishore Kadam and Kruttika Desai play the judges, the former putting in a great performance as always.
This brings us to the titular character of this movie and that is the lawyer defending the accused, played by Akshaye Khanna. The movie rests squarely on his shoulders and he bravely carries it. He dons the shoes of Tarun Saluja, a no frills lawyer trying to fight the most difficult case of his career. He is shown working pro bono for the underprivileged but also charging a fortune for his regular cases. It is very easy to hate on him at times when he is trying to exploit loopholes in the system to defend the accuser. He works according to his own code and lives with his own set of ideologies. This is a difficult role to play and Akshaye excels and delivers what I feel is one of his career best performances. After a break, it's great to have an actor of his caliber back.
The movie is well directed and written and kept me me engaged throughout. I recommend you to give the movie a chance. It is possible that you will end up hating the movie and I get that. But I urge you to form your opinion after watching it yourself. I give it a solid 8/10 rating.
