Dhak Dhak Movie review: Women talking, rejoicing

In the first half hour, Dhak Dhak feels like a run-of-the-mill, coming-of-age story of women smashing patriarchy while riding bullets. Call it the critic’s pessimism but films with a hook, sadly, tend to wallow in it. In an initial scene, the girl gang at the centre of the story manages to urinate in a field even after spotting a mongoose in the bushes. As they strap their helmets and get on their bikes an inspired village girl looks on, behind her, a PSA on the wall: ‘Betiya dur na jaye, ghar mein hi shauchalya banwaye (Don’t let girls go too far, make washrooms at home). The cliched writing was literally on the wall.

Cast: Ratna Pathak Shah, Dia Mirza, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanjana Sanghi

Director: Tarun Dudeja

But something changes for the affirmative once the film gets deeper into its characters. We meet Shashi Kumari Yadav aka Sky (Fatima Sana Shaikh), a travel vlogger, who seems like a frivolous Gen Z influencer till she incessantly calls medical stores late in the night, asking for sleeping tablets. She is suffering the trauma of her nudes being shared online. Then there is Manpreet Singh aka Mahi (Ratna Pathak Shah), an elderly woman who won a Royal Enfield in a newspaper contest. After trying to exchange it for a microwave, she ultimately decides to teach herself how to ride it. Dia Mirza’s Uzma is a burkha-clad woman with a male chauvinist husband. She can fix a spark plug with the same dexterity as she boils sewaiyan (sweet vermicelli). Manjari (Sanjana Sanghi) is introduced to us as a sheltered young girl who springs on top of a commode after spotting a cockroach, but her fear isn’t the product of a patriarchal household. Rather, it has germinated because her single-mother won’t let her out in the world. What is commendable is that Dhak Dhak doesn’t let its characters be mere frameworks, it fleshes them enough to feel alive.

Expected to dip into familiar waters, the film manages to retain narrative novelty even when the quartet embark upon their journey to Khardung La, the world’s highest motorable road. The hurdles the group faces on the trip are realistic and shape the characters. Sanjana’s Manjari loses her way and is helped by a truck driver who teaches her to detach herself from the problem in order to solve it. Love finds an inroad into Mahi’s life when a foreigner offers to help her fix a flat tyre. Little details are more telling than prolonged sermons. Like how Sky searches for a “hidden camera” as the group checks into a hotel room. Or how Uzma silently picks up litter without preaching about how tourists malign nature’s beauty.

Still, amid bouts of sharp writing, Dhak Dhak can’t remain immune to melodrama for long. Somewhere during the second half it seems to lose its way and stretches a point beyond its breaking point. It also starts dipping in the road film cliches it was dexterously avoiding in the beginning. The group splits, only to reunite and complete the trip after a character finds herself in the hospital. But at times of droll, performances lift the film up, especially Ratna Pathak Shah’s. She has an exemplary ability to light up a scene just by a sly smile or a witty remark. Dia Mirza also provides a great contrast to the gang’s vocal expressiveness with her composed act as Uzma.

Dhak Dhak doesn’t wear women's empowerment on its sleeve. It's rather incidental. None of the women want to prove anything to a man. It’s more of a celebration of womanhood. In an adorable sequence, the girls get high and huddle to discuss fake orgasms. They chuckle at inane condom flavours. What is freedom if not the freedom to laugh?