Babita Singh Reporting Movie Review | Anupama Chopra | THR India

Anupama Chopra reviews Babita Singh Reporting, Ambiecka Pandit's feature debut, which belongs to one of her favourite sub-genres — the female cop movie. Not the rockstar variety, but the grounded, wounded kind occupied by the women of Kohrra, Santosh, Delhi Crime, Aranyak and Soni. Nimisha Sajayan, making her Hindi film debut, plays ASI Babita Singh, nicknamed Baby, a woman so accommodating that she takes the fall for her corrupt senior's error and lands a two-week suspension. The break takes her to her husband's home in Rewa, where she becomes the one washing dishes and waking at 6 am to make haldi-wala doodh for her expectant sister-in-law. But when her school friend Bansi is found dead under suspicious circumstances, Baby can't sit silent — and in delving deeper, she discovers both his anguish and her own spine. Anupama notes that the mystery of Bansi's death is the least persuasive part of the film, but it provides a framework for Babita's gradual awakening. Ambiecka and writer Amita Vyas create a keenly observed portrait of the many ways in which women are constrained, even inside a marriage with love in it — Anshumaan Pushkar plays husband Sharad with the right touch of entitled cluelessness. The claustrophobia of small-town India is baked into the storytelling, along with the recognition of how quickly ordinary spaces turn threatening for women, and unlike the mainstream superhero cops, Babita is scared, which is refreshing. The THR Bottomline: Babita Singh Reporting is a tale told with verve and held together by a superb performance by Nimisha, one of the finest actors working today, and if you don't already know her work, this would be a good place to start. You can watch Babita Singh Reporting on Prime Video.

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