THE PROBLEM WITH FILMS LIKE PINK
Admittedly the title of this article is slightly clickbaity, but we need to talk about Pink... It is currently one of the highest rated Indian films of all time on IMDb with a rating of 9.0 based on almost 5,000 votes and it has also made a profit of 120% in less than a week. All of that is immensely impressive and everyone seems to be lauding the important message in the film but I wouldn't be so sure about how good the film itself is, which brings us to our first problem;
FILMS LIKE PINK MAR THE EXPECTATIONS ONE SHOULD HAVE FROM A GOOD FILM Pink relied on the sensitivity of social issues to hide it's incompetencies as a film, too often in the film there are examples of poor storytelling, whether it's in the form of uneven editing or confusing character arcs i.e. characters were going through evident changes but it was unclear what specifically was causing these changes, film just gives us some vague information but leaves too much room for assumptions.
PINK PROMOTES A TERRIBLE ACTING APPROACH The film pushes forward the notion that yelling and crying qualifies as 'good acting' and that is why films like Pink are more guilty of ruining acting culture in Indian cinema than films like Housefull or Happy New Year that may be terrible but at least are unpretentious and the audience as well as the filmmakers are aware of how unashamedly bad the performances are. Pink on the other hand, is full of itself and the actors seem to be almost convinced of how brilliant and 'national award-worthy' their performances are. It is truly cringeworthy to sit and watch Tapsee Pannu and the other two actresses overdramatise every scene that they're in, yet they don't even come close to the worst part of the film which is everyone in a small role/extras who make sure that even a few seconds of screen time is enough to ingrain their appallingly bad acting in our minds.
FILMS LIKE PINK PUT UNFAIR PRESSURE ON THE AUDIENCE And this blame is equally shared by us as a society, we all know that the issues Pink is raising are important and we all should be in agreement with what it preaches, however that is no excuse to shield the film from any honest criticisms. Almost always there is immense peer pressure to 'like' a film such as Pink only because of the social issues they raise. Most people, especially Indian men fear being painted as misogynistic assholes if they speak against a film like Pink. Yes, I completely support the issues that the film is raising but No, that doesn't change the fact that it is not a very good film. This may sound simple but films like Pink, Mardaani and several others are marketed using women empowerment as a mere tool to put a burden on the viewer to like them, if anything this is a misuse of feminism. At this point I would also like to clarify that I have no bias against films that raise social issues, hell my favourite film of this year is Zootopia which addresses themes like racism & sexism and does so with beautiful senstivity. Even in India we have had incredible films Taare Zameen Par in the past that address social issues but don't lazily use them to snatch the status of a good film undeservingly.
PINK IS A CELEBRATION OF MEDIOCRITY
Some performances like Amitabh's are good but that cannot be said for most of the others and even Amitabh's character is ruined by unnecessary additions like his mental health problem and his ailing wife both of which add nothing to the story except a failed attempt at generating sympathy for the character. At the start of the film the filmmakers also try to depict him as a creepy old man in perhaps the most obvious misdirection attempt in recent memory. The direction, screenplay and editing is extremely uneven ranging from good to downright confusing. Is this really where we want the bar to be set for 'good' Hindi films, this will further affect the films to come as filmmakers will look at examples like Pink or the more recent drenched-in-misguided-patriotism Airlift and think that this is where the benchmark is set, we're setting ourselves up for an inevitable decline in the quality of cinema we produce.
PINK PUTS PREACHING AHEAD OF IT'S STORY There are several instances in the film (the strange rulebook sequence in the court for example) where the film completely forgets about it's narrative and derails to give us these random lessons on what's wrong with the morality system in Indian society, albeit most of what it says is completely accurate and a necessary dialogue to have in society, there is no logical explanation for forcing them into the film in the way that it does.
We cannot just put the blame on one film, we as an audience need to recognise that just because a film talks about a current hot topic or opens up a discussion about what's wrong with our society does not automatically make it a good film. The problem is not new either, in the past we have had films like A Wednesday which had a very compelling script but if anyone looks beyond it they will notice the atrociously bad performances and poor direction. Once again it was a film that challenged our ideas that associate religion and terrorism and that somehow made us all overlook what was fundamentally wrong with it as a film. At the end of the day, a counter argument can be made for those viewers who are not otherwise interested in cinema and for whom these aforementioned issues may not matter as much but that should not be allowed to damage the integrity of Indian cinema or steer it in the wrong direction where we stop valuing anything but topical films. I would also like to add once again that I recognise how important the social message in this film is but when judged objectively as a 'film' and not a PSA, there is a lot to be scrutinised in Pink. BUT FOR NOW C U L8R, I AINT A H8R ✌🏽
