Generally, you know what kind of film you are going to watch within the first five minutes. As a film critic, I have given many movies longer to reveal themselves, but mostly, my intuitions turn out to be right based on the few scenes I see near the beginning of a feature. In the case of Ambiecka Pandit's Babita Singh Reporting, I am happy to report that my Movie Antenna first came to the right conclusion, and then the movie sustained that impression until its climax. There is so much mediocrity everywhere that when you come across a Bandar, a Chinna Chinna Aasai, and a Babita Singh Reporting, you actually see what really is sorely missing from most movies across both the mainstream and art-house spectrum. Chiefly, it's a sense of palpability, a feeling of capturing events in the present. If I were to describe what I feel after watching most shows and movies nowadays, I would point towards a common sensation of having watched something impersonal and airbrushed. There is no texture in the scenes, and the actors don't always seem to exist on the same level. Hell, they often seem detached from their surroundings as well. If I had to draw a consensus, I would say that most filmmakers have forgotten how to make films. They fumble in basic technical departments.
So, of course, it feels as if I have reached cinematic heaven when I watch Chinna Chinna Aasai and Bandar. And now, Pandit, with Babita Singh Reporting, has hit me with the same experience. How did I know that I would end up loving this mystery thriller within a few minutes, if not seconds? Because I immediately began responding to the film on an emotional, instinctive level. When the titular character, who is called Baby for most of the runtime and is played by Nimisha Sajayan, answers her senior, SI Sethi's (Rajesh Kumar), viva questions—he mock-tests her to check if she's prepared for the promotion—and when another, more senior officer suddenly enters the frame and starts demanding to know who leaked crucial information to the media, it's not just the police officers who freeze in their places, unable to utter a word. We, too, clench our fists and duck as if fearing the wrathful gaze of the senior officer. With this small scene alone, Pandit generates a tensile, vigorous drama, and this is only a sample. She is just warming us up and feeding us starters. A few scenes later, outside the Rewa railway station, when Baby meets her childhood friend Bansi (Barun Sobti) and introduces him to her husband, Sharad (Anshumaan Pushkar), there is a perceptible awkwardness between the three characters—one that we can almost touch with our fingers.
Since Pandit ensures we are always responding emotionally to whatever she throws at us (and spoilers from this point onwards), the news of Bansi's death affects us like an emotional whiplash. This is one of the most shocking twists I have seen in any film, in any language, this year, and what elevates it so highly is Pandit's fantastic filmmaking, which keeps us on our toes and instantly sucks us into her world. Sobti casts a unique spell with his cameo. His Bansi looks a little awkward, a little creepy, a little gentle, a little lovestruck, and a little off. We are not quite sure what to make of his initial appearance. Does he have a crush on Baby? Is he simply too excited upon meeting a friend after a long time, considering he mentions that he doesn't have any friends? Is he okay? Does he suffer from some psychological trouble? Before we can get a handle on him, Babita Singh Reporting provides us with the news of his death. It's shocking because it feels as if someone we wanted to learn more about has met a premature end. Also, the offhanded, unobtrusive way the news is first broken leaves us too stunned to react. I was reminded of the dead-body reveal in Aarkkariyam, which, too, comes unexpectedly and casually and takes us by surprise.
Bansi's outward demeanor, which initially looks weird, makes a whole lot of sense in the end. In retrospect, his body language takes on a tragic layer. But before reaching that point, Pandit and writer Amita Vyas take us through a setting that first appears patriarchal and then reveals itself as a rot that does its best to crush the innocent. Baby is surrounded by men who exploit her but make it seem as if they are doing her a favor. Sethi uses her to shoot reels, and then later, to save his skin, he asks her to take the blame for a leak since she would merely get a two-week suspension, which she can utilize to go to her hometown with her husband, and this action will also help her climb further up the professional ladder with Sethi's hand on her back. Everyone, including Sharad, undermines Baby's position by bringing up the fact that she was hired on compassionate grounds, which, according to them, translates to "she is not well-suited for her position." Sharad even occasionally mentions that Baby was better off teaching science to sixth-standard students. But these men, especially Sharad, aren't conceived as easy caricatures. They are not as simplistically written as, say, Suraj Venjaramoodu's character in The Great Indian Kitchen (poor Sajayan, in movies, is surrounded by toxic men).
One wants to hug Vyas solely on the basis of her conception of Sharad. Most Indian men aren't very open about their backward notions. Rather, they present them subtly, even with a polite demeanor, which is why women often defend them by saying, "He is good with me at home." With Sharad, we see exactly what those women actually mean when they praise their bad husbands. Here is a man who doesn't become jealous after meeting Bansi. He, in fact, teases Baby and even encourages her to have her little reunion. His flaws tumble out through his approval of fat-shaming jokes targeted towards his wife (he even dispenses some of those jokes in front of his friends and is hurt when Baby attacks him with a joke of her own) and his typical Indian-man expectation that Baby do all the household chores perfectly like a "sanskaari biwi," an obedient robot. And yet, these shades of grey make Sharad very fascinating to watch. During one of my favorite scenes in the film, Sharad barges into the room and scolds Baby for arriving disheveled in front of Guddi's (Priya Yadav) in-laws and then affectionately feeds her food with his own hands like the most lovable husband in the world. What Vyas and Pandit present is a man who is a victim of patriarchal conditioning, which prevents him from being flawless. At the end of the day, he does love Baby very much. Although he also blindly plays the victim by crying over his supposedly tarnished reputation (notice how Baby, all angry, heartbroken, and confounded, pats Sharad on the chest to calm him down when it's she who needs to be patted, loved, and calmed down).
But again, Vyas and Pandit refuse to take the easy way out by attacking just patriarchy and toxic men. Their criticism is complex, and it runs deeper. The filmmakers target a society so deformed that it only burns Ravan's effigy while physically and mentally abusing and oppressing the weak to the point that living in this hell feels impossible. The message is clear: toughen up or be ready to be consumed by a corrupt, broken system. In that respect, the revelation superbly connects to the central theme, and, by not putting the blame on an unhinged killer, it infuses the crime-thriller genre with a breath of fresh air. All of this brings me to the fact that Babita Singh Reporting is essentially a coming-of-(r)age story where Baby eventually transforms into Babita. The meek yet tenacious wife who hides her frustration from others turns into a ferocious police officer who doesn't let anyone manipulate her. Hence, there is a lot of significance in the brief, fourth-wall-breaking stare that Babita gives after saluting a senior officer. That stare is shortly followed by a moment where the movie's title is stamped on the screen, and this stamp should be taken as a stamp of authority, not a stamp of approval that Babita receives from someone. The ASI finally reports for duty, and it rightly feels like a moment worthy of celebration. One just wants to look at her and say, "Welcome."
Final Score - [8.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times