The new Hindi film Laapataa Ladies directed by Indian filmmaker Kiran Rao has earned $1 million in a week at the global box office. Marking Rao’s second directorial venture after Dhobi Ghat, Laapataa Ladies features Pratibha Ranta, Bhaskar Jha, Nitanshi Goel, and Sparsh Shrivastava in lead roles. With just 500 screens in India and another 100 outside the country, the small-budget film has performed well at the ticket windows.
Laapataa Ladies was screened at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and received wide critical acclaim. The theatrical collection of the film now adds to its success. It has been produced by Aamir Khan Productions and is presented and distributed by Jio Studios.
Laapataa Ladies made an opening worldwide gross of $205,500 when it hit theatres on March 1. Despite limited release in mere 600 screens and limited marketing, the collections saw a steep rise on the second day and reached $480,000. The three-day total for the film stood at $760,000 at the end of the film’s first weekend at the ticket windows. The box office numbers prove that the Hindi cinema audience is ready for good content – a well-written story gets all the footfalls irrespective of the marketing and promotions around the release.
Rao’s film is based in the Hindi hinterlands of India and focuses on two women who get lost soon after their weddings. In their own different ways, the two husbands search for their newly-wedded wives. The narrative is ably supported by the supporting cast of Ravi Kishan and Chhaya Kadam.
Laapataa Ladies uses the premise for the situational comedy and also takes sharp digs at patriarchy. Right from the women’s veils to her lack of choice in something as basic and important as her marriage, the film covers a wide range of issues encompassing the society.
The meaning of the film’s title is ‘lost ladies’, and it shows not just the women finding themselves in the course of the narrative. It also shows how men find the importance of women enjoying equal rights to nutrition, education and freedom to make their own choices. It also highlights the futility of patriarchal system of society.
An important aspect of Laapataa Ladies is that it avoids demonizing anyone – neither the men, nor the society is the pure black villain in this story. It steers clear of inclusive tokenism – the men, and women in the film show shades of grey in the movie. They are well-etched out characters speaking about the reality and rationality of things instead of being disconnected ideologists holding the flag of equality.
The Hindi film Kaagaz 2 also hit theatres the same day and had similar limited screens. Directed by VK Prakash, the film features late actor Satish Kaushik along with Anupam Kher, Darshan Kumar and Neena Gupta.
Meanwhile, Yami Gautam’s Article 370 continues to attract footfall in theatres even two weeks after it first released on February 23. It has collected $7.5 million in 15 days in India while the global collection has crossed $8 million.