Nachiket Samant’s Single Salma is a movie which means nicely, it desires to speak about alternative, womanhood, and the complicated mess of recent relationships, however the storytelling doesn’t at all times sustain with its good intentions. Its coronary heart is firmly in the precise place; its execution, sadly, isn’t.
Set in Lucknow, the movie follows Salma (Huma Qureshi), a vivid, no-nonsense lady who works for the town’s city planning division. She’s the household’s emotional and monetary anchor, engaged to Sikander (Shreyas Talpade), a reliable, well-meaning man who represents conventional stability. Salma, although, isn’t completely satisfied she desires the life that everybody else appears to have charted for her.
The movie begins on a refreshingly grounded be aware. For as soon as, authorities officers are proven working in earnest, making ready for a Good Metropolis Conclave in London with real dedication. Even overseas, they’re seen studying and representing their metropolis with professionalism, a element hardly ever captured with such authenticity in Hindi cinema.
In London, Salma’s world shifts. She meets Meet (Sunny Singh), a captivating planner from the London city planning division who believes in open relationships and is already concerned together with his girlfriend (Lauren Gottlieb). Drawn to his straightforward confidence and free-spirited way of living, Salma finds herself pulled into unfamiliar emotional territory. When she offers in to her need and loses her virginity to him, what follows is confusion, she desires one thing deeper, and later he too convinces himself he ought to marry her and follows her to Lucknow.
The movie’s most compelling stretch comes when Salma turns into the goal of public shaming after pictures of her in a bikini are leaked on-line. As an alternative of melodrama, Samant crafts these moments with empathy. Her male colleagues rally to defend her, a quietly highly effective reversal of stereotype. It’s a scene that captures each the vulnerability and dignity of a lady reclaiming her narrative.
Huma Qureshi carries the movie on her succesful shoulders, lending Salma heat, humour, and a plausible mixture of confidence and self-doubt. Although her character appears like a patchwork of various concepts. She gamely rises above all of it and offers her 100%. Shreyas Talpade performs Sikander with restraint and decency, and together with his comedian timing spot on. He’s the narrator of the movie, one thing just like the unreliable narrator of How I Met Your Mom and we want was given a freer hand. Sunny Singh’s Meet exudes a straightforward attraction that later offers method to sudden introspection. Navni Parihar as Mrs. Shrivastav, Salma’s senior colleague, and Nidhi Singh as her outspoken finest pal, add texture and power, giving the movie its liveliest exchanges.
Nonetheless, regardless of the robust performances, Single Salma struggles with tone and rhythm. What begins as a layered exploration of identification and independence slips into components, the conservative lady falling for the primary man who makes her really feel seen, mistaking attraction for love. There are moments that remind you of Queen (2014), however with out its easy circulation or natural humour. The place Queen felt like an unforced journey of self-discovery, Single Salma feels extra like a well-meant essay on liberation.
Sohail Sen’s music barely registers, and the movie’s pacing, significantly within the second half, is uneven. The narrative loses its spark simply when it needs to be discovering its emotional peak.
Nonetheless, there’s sincerity in Single Salma, in its try to painting an impartial lady not as a stereotype however as somebody flawed, curious, and studying to outline herself past societal labels. It’s a movie that tries to empower by way of empathy reasonably than insurrection, even when the craft doesn’t at all times rise to the event.
All-in-all, Single Salma is a well-intentioned, sometimes shifting story that wanted sharper writing and lighter storytelling to really shine.
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