Ribbon: Kalki all the way

Cast: Kalki Koechlin, Sumeet Vyas, Hitesh Malhan

Rated: 5.5 /10

Kalki Koechlin is on a roll these days and with Ribbon, she brings to you yet another introspective aspect of modern cinema, this time on urban life and times. She is the centrepoint of thishatke kind of parallel cinema that has been mushrooming in Bollywood for some time now, with ambitions to make a mark at the box office.

With evolving audiences in tier 1 and even some tier II cities, such cinema is, fortunately, gaining ground and Ribbon, throwing up the travails of a key-latch nucleus family trying to make sense of survival in a concrete jungle, makes sense.

However, as it ambles along showing the plight of a woman who gets pregnant and then has a baby, trying all the time to keep up with her job in a patriarchal society, the storyline gets confused and shifts summarily from the main plot, making you wonder whether it was all about the stress of life in a megapolis or about the more pointed and grave problem of child abuse.

Of course, Kalki is brilliant and real as a reluctant mother who gets virtually sacked from her hi-tech job because she has to take maternity leave. She throws up all the things that happen to you if you are a woman in a man’s world and she does so without any chest-beating.

The film is for a niche audience and will thus be seen and enjoyed by the discerning lot only.

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 05 November, 2017