Sex Education meets Jane the Virgin with a dash of Emma Seligman's Bottoms in Thank You For Coming's vision. It is instantly refreshing to see a movie about one woman Kanika Kapoor's search for her 'Prince Charming' hit a roadblock because, as she admits to her best friends Pallavi (Dolly Singh) and Tina (Shibani Bedi), she's never had an orgasm.
Recent surveys have pointed out the "orgasm gap" between the sexes and it points to much larger issues that we've ignored for long (most prominently society's reluctance to center female pleasure).
And yet, Ekta Kapoor-Rhea Kapoor's film is all about its women and their (messy, honest, sometimes dysfunctional) lives. I've always loved an imperfect female character (cue the sighs from all the femme fatales we relegated to the sidelines because we thought the 'hero' was always right). Kanika Kapoor (Bhumi Pednekar) is one such character.
Like most women, she has been conditioned to believe that a woman's life is complete with a partner, so much so that she assumes her single mother, the gynaecologist Ms Kapoor (Natasha Rastogi) is unhappy simply because she's single (and ready to mingle).
This prompts her to track down all her exes and try to piece together the events of a night she can't remember. The way Thank You For Coming embraces its own whimsy is worthy of applause – there is something so heartwarming about how silly the movie is.
She wonders if it's Jeevan (the earnest suitor), 'Professor' (Anil Kapoor) as someone who uses poetry to mask the fact that he's so woefully problematic, the charming but flawed Arjun (Karan Kundrra), and the absolute vision that is Sushant Divgikar.
Bhumi Pednekar is quickly becoming an actor you can trust to pick an engaging script and give it her all, everything else be damned. She is the film's life and blood; without her the film would lose most of its charm. She plays Kanika Kapoor with an infectious earnesty.
All the other actors in the film, regrettably, remain on the fringes. It's especially a pity for Shibani Bedi, clearly the standout in the bunch. Her relationship with her daughter Rabeya (Saloni Daini) was rife with potential for commentary (some of it comes).
How Tina (herself a single mother) internalises the expectations society has on her to be perfect and how that inevitably affects her young teenage daughter is a story I'd definitely watch.
And that's where Thank You For Coming's heart lies – it seems to be telling women that it's absolutely okay to be imperfect, make mistakes, not consider every step and move like society expects them to, and just, be.
The film's setback is that it sets up too many wonderful premises and packs them up just as quickly, leaving less space for anything truly nuanced to develop. When Kanika meets a younger Rushi (Shehnaaz Gill) on the arm of the man she desires, the film defies expectations and doesn't pit the women against each other. Rushi seems almost enamored by Kanika and there is chemistry between the actors that the film just doesn't milk.
Add to that, a monologue that ends with women screaming 'Smash the patriarchy' is the laziest plot device to use.
Some plot points are introduced purely for a last-minute conflict to make its presence known but the three-part structure no longer needs to be taken this seriously. The actual conflict of how patriarchal conditioning affects everyone is omnipresent in the film. I understand the need for the 'betrayal' track; I just don't get why it had to be that drawn out and take over the amount of screen time that it did.
While Thank You For Coming isn't without flaws, I can't end this without asking you to give the movie a shot, mostly because it smartly weaves in discussions around consent, body-shaming, internalised (and otherwise rampant) misogyny, shame associated with female pleasure, and so much more into its runtime.
The film is a fresh voice in a sea of people telling women what to do and how to behave.
Thank You For Coming is the absolutely delightful raunchy, foul-mouthed, unapologetic feminist comedy we've been waiting for even though we do deserve more.
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