Rita – A Marathi Movie that’s getting noticed
Marathi film industry has seen a spate of releases recently. With many Bollywood production houses pumping money, its exciting time for Marathi film Directors. Alas, the same can not be said about the quality of movies which the industry is churning out.
Rita is the directorial debut of Renuka Shahane. The story is based on her mother Shanta Gokhale’s novel- Rita Wellingkar. The title character is played by Pallavi Joshi.
This movie also marks Jackie Shroff’s debut in Marathi, after his acting stint in Malayalam, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil and Bhojpuri Cinema. Rita is the story of a woman, who discovers love, questions what is moral and immoral, male chauvinism and her self respect. The movie begins with Rita (Pallavi Joshi) being treated for nervous breakdown in a mental asylum. We discover why she ends up in mental asylum as Rita writes a letter to her childhood friend Saraswati(Renuka Shahane).
We learn that Rita is eldest of four siblings and after her father is dismissed from his company for his unethical behavior, he does not try to search for a new job. But this does not come in the way of her parent’s penchant for living upper middle class life. Due to the economic setback at home, at the tender age of 17, Rita is forced to discontinue her education and has to pursue a job. As she moves up the corporate ladder she becomes personal assistant of Vittal Salvi (Jackie Shroff).
Vittal recognizing Rita’s talent encourages her to complete her education and also urges her to take a better job. During this period, two younger sisters of Rita get married, but the whole financial burden of the extravagance of marriage falls on Rita’s shoulder. During this hour of financial crisis while she has no emotional support from family members she and Vittal come close to each other and fall in love. The rest of film is about how Rita struggles for the moral right of her love, how she has nervous breakdown and how she recovers herself and her self respect again.
The movie as a whole did not work for me. But nevertheless there were some scenes which left an impression in my heart.
• The scene when Jackie comes to Rita’s house, when her younger sister serves Vittal hot coffee, Rita blows the coffee for him , this scene establishes how Rita knows every like and dislike of Vittal.
• The confrontation scene between Rita and Vittal, where Rita claims she is not ashamed of falling in love with a married man.
• The climax scene, between Rita and Vittal
The other good thing about film is that it does not take sides, the characters are not shown either as black or white, but are caught in the web of life, between wanting to do and having to do. It questions, society’s morality, which blames other women for wrecking marriage but the same society does not blame Man for straying from marriage. Towards the climax Pallavi Joshi says she may be the other woman in Jackie’s life, but that does not mean she is bad.
Technically the film is weak in many departments. The BGM score unnecessarily pops up when not required, I fail to understand the use of Alaap especially when some one is crying. Pallavi Joshi excels in her role. Jackie is average and his voice has been dubbed by someone else. Among the supporting characters Mohan Agashe, Sushasini Mulay and Sai Tamankar are average. Tushar Dalvi and Makrand Deshpande are wasted,
As a director, Renuka has to learn lot of things, before her next venture. In the end we cannot forget the fact cinema is a visual medium and it has to please the eyes. But still as a director she has stayed away from commercial trappings of Marathi Cinema and that’s commendable indeed. Its still not art house cinema, but with all it flaws, it is watchable fare. A sincere effort indeed from the debutant director.
Tags: Jackie Shroff, Marathi, Movie Review, Pallavi Joshi, Renuka Shahane, Rita
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
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Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Interesting to note that Renuka Shahane has gone in for a slightly unconventional debut as a director.She is slated now to make a thriller in Hindi next.Cinemausher- its also heartening to know that Rita has done reasonably well at the box office.
Rita explores the extra marital affairs territory (along with many other things) like never before. At least in my movie watching, I haven’t come across a more nuanced depiction of what it is like to fall in love wih a married man.
Lets c, if mood and time permits, I’ll be posting my take by tom.
the flow of the story is gud, but i didint get one thing, why a mom wud behave so cruelly to her elder daughter and vice versa with younger ones, even though shes not a step mom
A very good question. I am sure Renuka would be the better person to answer.
However, what you term as ‘cruelly’ or ‘cruelty’ is what is called as ‘expectation’ in todays world. Its not easy to contemplate when you are not in the situation. Let me break it up for you:
1. When Rita took the responsibility of family, the expectation of her family increased. Apparently, Rita’s aim was also to make her family happy. Remember, Rita’s character is of the one who adores and cares the family and the one who wished to live only for her family.
2. When you are a strong and responsible person in your family or have shown traits of that(Rita’s case). This is in comparison to her sisters, then the family would always consider provide emotional and monetary support only to the siblings(priority wise). They would always believe that you CAN manage/control yourself.
There comes the ‘expectation’, which is not ‘cruelty’. Thats the mentality of the
‘Indian lower-middle class’ families. Its not thier fault, its only the way they interpret situtations and in most cases are helpless. Thats the bad part of being in-betweeen(the rich and poor). This is not just Rita’s case, but over the decades there have been many Rita’s who have struggled and who are struggling.
vittal is an opportunist character ! It would be great to see two great female actresses in same movie!! btw can anyone suggest me some good marathi movies …so far i have seen some bengali movies..and wondered if are there more hidden gems in regional cinema!!
NB:this site is visited by many art directors …my request ..make a movie in marwari for jains..research this community and make a movie..there are many issues like dowry, white collar crimes, over traditional, arrange marriages, over religious etc
Gabhricha Paus, Valu, Dombivali Fast, Aga Bai Arecha!, Pakpakpakkak are my fav…i havn’t watched the older movies….
Wonderful subject. I am a fan of Renuka Shahane. Have to watch the movie. I think it takes guts to handle such a contemporary subject in a debut film, shows her confidence and the will to bring it on screen.
Its very simple to say, but I am sure it has taken lot of efforts, research and hard work to make this one.
beautifully written
well actually there a lot of marathi movies which are very interesting to watch … I ve ended up watching movies with no idea of the title while swapping channels… the benefit for smbdy like me during the starting days were that a lot marathi actors would be recognisabe due to their roles, small or big in bollywood… but yeah … keep switching channels and watch movies in telugu or marathi, and see them for more than 5-10 minutes, you will starting getting the grasp of where these are moving and might end up watching the whole movies… chocolate and bindaas were 2 movies whose names I picked up after watching them apart from shwaas and the ones mentioned above.. however watch this movie called agyaat or something my amol palekar as director and sonali bendre as protagist.. its set in feudal times when the king is not able to concieve an heir to the throne… very subtle and a great watch…
Anaahat
Gotta watch it!!
@Gaurang,
It is one of the best film on extra martial affairs.
@Manish,
There are many new marathi movies apart from that V.Shantaram’s marathi movie are treat to watch.
@Atheist,
Thanks
@PS,
It is Anaahat.