Review: 15 Park Avenue

Rating:
Genre: Drama

15 Park Avenue is not an easy movie to watch. It's not the case that it's a bad movie -- on the contrary it's an amazing movie. Do not miss a chance to watch it! But it's certainly not an easy movie to watch.

The Story
The story is powerful. It's about Mitali/Mithi - a schizophrenic girl - her life, her family, and her own reality. The movie is narrated in the present with a series of flashbacks building up the plot.

Mithi is an almost normal child with symptoms of schizophrenia which show up rather rarely. Joydeep/Jojo (Rahul Bose) falls in love with her and is adamant on marrying her, much to the dismay of Mithi's sister, Shabana Azmi. Mithi joins the Illustrated Weekly as a journalist and is sent all alone to a small town in Bihar to cover the post-poll riots. She is raped, repeatedly, by the local goons there. Jojo tries hard to accept her -- but fails. Shocked by the trauma of the gang rape and her lover leaving her, Mithi succumbs to acute schizophrenia. Her sister sacrifices her own life to take care of Mithi.

Jojo goes on to marry and has two kids. Eleven years while holidaying in Bhutan he sees Mithi and is overcome with an extreme sense of guilt of having failed her when she needed him the most. After meeting her a couple of times, he becomes determined to help Mithi find her imaginary home at 15 Park Avenue. All this, much to the disapporval of his wife.

The End
The end is symbolic and we spent the rest of the evening trying to come up with various interpretations of it. The one that I felt was most plausible is that Mithi finally finds the meaning of her life -- her home at 15 Park Avenue with a happy family -- albeit in a separate plane of reality. After she has gone the others start looking for their 15 Park Avenues -- their meanings of life. What do you think -- do you have some other interpretation?

The Actors
Konkana Sensharma has played the part of Mitali flawlessly. You can almost feel her hallucinating when she goes on to describe her imaginary house situated at 15 Park Avenue, five imaginary kids, imaginary pet dogs, and an imaginary husband who works at Baghdad as the prime minister of shikakai.

The scene where Mithi is raped is heart wrenching. Long after the movie, it still haunts me. The other scene -- where Jojo makes love to his wife (Shefali Chhaaya) and she asks him about his past relationship with Mithi -- is powerful too. Two extreme forms of sex juxtaposed against each another -- one to express hatred and the other to express love.

The way the confused emotions of Shabana Azmi are handled are also good. The scene where she starts shouting and blaming her mother for her failed love life is so realistic.

The Verdict
15 Park Avenue reaffirms your faith that all is not lost in Bollywood -- with the No Entry's, Garam Masaalas, and Mahesh Bhatt's skin flicks. It is a must watch!