Six Things That make 'Toilet-ek prem katha' a Film Below My Expectations

This independence day, I was exited to watch this social message film starring Akshay Kumar the last years’ best actor national award winner. Last night I watched the film in spirit of my expectations, but found it quite unable to leave its impression the way I had expected. Here are the points that caused the film remain as unimpressive I had not expected:

1) Weak love story: A man of 36 years who already has 18 affairs found his right girl out side a train toilet in a seen that fails to convince me that it was love at first site. Similarly, a girl who had no soft corner for the over-aged man suddenly starts loving her after he deletes his number form her phone. But what made them fall in deep love remains an unanswered question for me!

2) Overacting: I found most characters doing more overacting than fitting inside their character. Specially, the grandmother of Keshav (Akshay Kumar), Shubha Khote. Shubha ji somehow put no impression of a real village women in the film though the climax is burdened on her shoulders. I found only divyansu Sharma and Sana Khan fit in their roles. As younger brother and outgoing girl friend of Keshav.  

3) Untouched issues: The film that revolves around sanitation facilities for women in village revolves around only the problem of going far away in the grounds where sitting in open is a matter of shame for women. But this is not the entire thing that matters. Someone, who had already been in a village where there is no toilet, but there are many other things that matter. There may be rains faced by people at their fixed place and in their fixed time. Andno body can actually sit on the same point of place everyday, people need to look for new sitting space everyday.

4) Failure to replicate the real rural people: The level of films has upgraded to a point where every set of the film convinces to be real in itself. However, Toilet is shot around sets with people who fail to represent the real mentality of rural people. Surprisingly, no one in the village could support Keshav and Jaya’s demand for closed in-home toilet. However, by the climax all the women start feeling this need all of sudden.

5) Lack of perfect story telling: The ten minutes story line shown in more than two hours film fails to tell us any magnificent intellectual rationally justified actions of people willing to establish there sanitation need as important as it actually is. What, by the end, makes all the village people accept toilet in the home premises seems just the wish of director/producer.

6) No enduring social message left: The film does not set Keshav or Jaya as intellectuals to be followed by any village man or women. The hero boasts of his capabilities of moving the mountains if he really wishes to something becomes helpless crying surrendering man when he really comes across his fight against the mind set of people around him.

All in all, for me, Toilet- ek prem katha leaves an impression of some Nukkad natak instead of being a bollywood movie that could have left me clapping on any dialogue or seen reinforcing a neat social message.

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