‘Jhansi Ka Rajkumar’ Movie Review: Gulshan Devaiah's Small-Town Comedy is Dull and Dated

Director: Nicholas Kharkongor

Writer: Nicholas Kharkongor

Cast: Gulshan Devaiah, Namita Dubey, Vipin Sharma, Sunita Rajwar, Vivek Madaan

Streaming on: Waves OTT app

Even as an Ayushmann Khurrana-coded small-town comedy that’s a decade too late, Jhansi Ka Rajkumar feels dated. The film stars Gulshan Devaiah as Rajkumar, a stay-at-home dad struggling to adjust to a move from Delhi to Jhansi — or, more accurately, struggling to function in a judgmental society. His wife, Devayani (Namita Dubey), is the breadwinner with a government job. You know the drill. Gender role reversal. Ridicule. Stigma. Pressure to conform. Marital conflict. Speech. Resolution. This is basically a middle-class Ki & Ka (2016), just not as gimmicky and self-satisfied. But it’s also not as self-contained as Barun Sobti’s track in Raat Jawaan Hai, a show where the guy’s “progressive househusband” tag silently gnaws away at him.

The problem with Hindi films like Jhansi Ka Rajkumar is that their (social) commentary is more the Ravi Shastri kind than the Richie Benaud kind: full of broad strokes, tracer bullets and loud cliches. It’s not enough that the premise exists. There has to be a tacky GarageBand-fueled background score. There have to be TVF-style quirky characters and infotainment vibes. Every scene must be a blatant nod to the film’s theme. The film’s title is a play on ‘Jhansi Ki Rani’ (Rani Lakshmibai) and the city’s historical relationship with gender equality and rebellion, but no, the man’s name here has to be Rajkumar (“prince”) and his voice-over has to spell out this metaphor in the beginning. He has to be seen in the kitchen or watching Youtube videos about cooking; there has to be a funny tea-making scene. His daughter has to write “my papa works as a housewife” in her school essay. A neighbour must mock Rajkumar’s masculinity by calling him a “laundiya” and beat him up. A teacher must publicly ask Devayani why she’s stopped breast-feeding her baby 8 months in. A nosy housewife must force Raj to be part of a boisterous kitty party gang. Perhaps the only half-clever subversion is a track of Raj’s black eye accidentally caused by his wife in the kitchen. Even this wink at domestic violence loses its shape after two scenes.

On paper, there are hints of the director that made Axone (2019), the rooted and entertaining little film about a group of Northeastern migrants in Delhi. For instance, I like the idea of the husbands in the locality feeling threatened by Raj’s beta-maleness; their wives demand more from them after Raj becomes a bit of a cult hero among them. There’s a neat moment where the domestic help weeps about her alcoholic husband living off her earnings, only to realise that she may have offended Raj; class privilege becomes the only factor that distinguishes a stay-at-home dad from an exploitative husband. I also like that, at one point, a seemingly normal routine — where Raj hangs out with his buddies after work while Devayani cares for the kids — is actually the low point of their story. Take away the context of Raj caving to the pressure of being a ‘man,’ and it looks like a regular family phase.

But the staging of these parts lack any sort of nuance. The men have a poorly written conversation about that word called “feminism”. The conflict of the couple, too, is resolved too easily; blink and you’ll miss it. The film also has a major montage problem, which directly stems from the film having a music problem. Everything is a sound-effect montage: Raj doing household chores, or warming up to the mothers at school, or embarking on a sad job hunt, or Devayani at odds with her sudden role as an active mom. When the climax descends into surreal slapstick comedy (an iconic statue falls on two sparring men of course), you can tell that Jhansi Ka Rajkumar has run out of ways to reiterate its message. There’s only so much TV-soap tone a viewer can take.

There will perhaps come a day when film-makers might introspect about why stories about strong-minded women and mothers are often reduced to the magnanimity of their husbands. Devayani, the actual hero of this film, is a mere spectator and even the female version of an ungrateful man at times. The spotlight, however, is on him for daring to be liberal. There will come a day when competent casts in movies set in specific regions aren’t obliged to put on terrible accents. There will come a day when family-friendly entertainment doesn’t need to look like it’s made for toddlers. Today is not that day. I have a sneaky feeling that when that day comes, the film will spell out the fact that the day has come. It won’t hurt to day-dream a little, though.