A half-baked mission

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha
Hindi (U)
Cast: Akshay Kumar, Bhumi Pednekar.
Director: Shree Narayan Singh

This one was bound to raise a stink. And Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar do an earnest job in educating half of India where to do their morning squats.

The hitch is that the movie does a bad job in linking bo­w­el movements with bureaucracy.

So, while the first half sparkles with subtle lessons of a socio-cultural awakening, the second half just makes a song and dance about the government’s commode mission.
And what begins as a toilet tale ends up as a paean to the prime minister.

A feisty college topper mouthing women’s lib, Bhumi Pednekar goes mute after marriage and hides under ghoonghat when ‘traditions’ stare at her.

And it doesn’t help that toilet is an alien concept to hubby dear and father-in-law. It takes Pednekar a number of ‘lota parties’ and stealthy morning ablutions to kick up a stink about defecating in open.

A dozen songs pop up amid the shortlived honeymoon and the fights over where to dump that intestine sewage. And the sanitation crusade loses steam midway.