Pink (2016 film)

Plot

Raunak Anand a.k.a. Dumpy (Raashul Tandon) and Vishwajyoti Ghosh a.k.a Vishwa (Tushar Pandey) rush their friend, Rajveer Singh (Angad Bedi) to the hospital. He is profusely bleeding from an injury to his head. They nervously refrain from filing a police complaint. Elsewhere three young women — Meenal Arora (Taapsee Pannu), Falak Ali (Kirti Kulhari) and Andrea Tariang (Andrea Tariang) — hurriedly travel in a taxi to their apartment. They look disoriented, and it is implied that they have something to do with the incident.

Meenal and her friends are shaken but try to carry on with their normal life. They are independent and self-sufficient women living together in South Delhi. Meenal goes out for her morning run, where she sees an old man staring at her. He turns out to be Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan), their neighbor. Eventually a series of threats arise from Rajveer’s friend Ankit Malhotra (Vijay Verma), who pushes for revenge. The threats result in Andrea being stalked and Falak losing her job. They are discouraged by a police officer from filing a complaint stating it would make their daily lives miserable. In reality the local police are aware that the young men are "well connected" and are backed-up by Rajveer’s uncle who is a powerful politician from South Delhi. Nevertheless, Meenal files a complaint.

Meenal is kidnapped by Rajveer’s friends during her morning run. Deepak witnesses the incident but is unable to help. Meenal is molested in the moving car and dropped back at night after being warned to drop the charges. A few days later, Meenal is arrested by police from her apartment, based on a complaint from Rajveer labeling the women as prostitutes and charging Meenal with attempted murder. Deepak visits Falak and Andrea at their apartment and helps them with the bail procedures. It turns out that Deepak was a reputable lawyer who retired after a decline in his mental health, and also to take care of his ailing wife Sara (Mamta Shankar). He comes out of retirement to help the women.

In the courtroom, Rajveer’s lawyer, Prashant Mehra (Piyush Mishra), presents the following version of events: Rajveer and his friends meet with Meenal and her friends at a rock concert. The men invite the women for dinner at a hotel resort, where they have drinks. The women provoke the men and demand money, all signs indicating that they are prostitutes. Rajveer refuses to pay and an enraged Meenal hits him on the head with a bottle and flees.

Prashant’s argument focuses on the poor moral character of the women. He pushes the idea that the friendly manner of the women, the fact that they attended a rock concert and the fact that they had drinks with the men indicate that they were prostitutes. Prashant attacks the fact that Meenal has family in Delhi but chooses to live alone, Falak is in a relationship with an older man, and Andrea has moved to the city from the North East of India.

Contrary to this, Meenal and her friends state that the men tried to sexually assault them. Meenal alledges that Rajveer tried to rape her, and she attacked him with the bottle in self defense. Deepak’s argument focuses on the issue of consent and a woman’s right to say no. A series of interesting and chilling courtroom arguments ensues in the following days. Towards the end of the trial, Rajveer becomes enraged and provoked by Deepak, revealing the truth by stating that the women “got what they deserved”. Deepak criticizes the regressed views of the society where women are stereotyped as prostitutes if they come home late, move out of their home, want to be independent, drink and so on, but none of these apply to men.

In his closing remarks, Deepak mentions that his client said “no”. No means no and doesn’t require further explanation. The court rules in favor of the women, acquitting them. Rajveer, Ankit, and Dumpy are charged, with the final verdict of their punishment pending.

The closing credits shows what happened at the resort, with the events leading up to Meenal’s attack on Rajveer.

Production

In early March 2016 Amitabh Bachchan revealed that he was shooting a film in Delhi. It was rumoured that the film was titled "Eve". On 13 March Bachchan denied the rumours and announced through Twitter that the film is titled Pink.

Director-producer Shoojit Sircar informed that Amitabh Bachchan accepted the role and Tapsee Pannu was their first choice. Andrea Tariang was also selected to play the role of one of the girls in the film. Tushar Pandey, Raashul Tandon and Arjun Chakraborty are making their debut with this film.

Filming

The shooting of the film began in New Delhi on International Women's Day, 2016. The looks of Amitabh Bachchan in the movie was created by Shoojit Sircar however the idea of wearing the mask was suggested by Amitabh Bachchan since Delhi is very polluted.

During the shoot, Amitabh Bachchan wandered the streets of New Delhi while wearing a costume in which the public could not recognise him. Amitabh Bachchan finished filming his scenes in April 2016.

Taapsee often broke down on the shooting sets as she felt her character was very strong and challenging. She suffered from viral infection during the court scenes and wanted to dub later, however Shoojit felt that her illness would add more authenticity to the scenes. Despite the hardships Taapsee enjoyed and had lots of fun while filming the scenes.

The original climax of Rajvir and his friends winning the case was modified so as not to hurt the sentiments of the audience.

A special screening of the film was held for Amitabh Bachchan's co stars and the leading ladies of Bollywood. However Amitabh Bachchan could not attend the screening due to health issues. Taapsee also arranged a special screening of the film for the Telugu film industry at Hyderabad.

Bishan Singh Bedi, father of Angad Bedi, arranged a special screening of the film in Delhi which was attended by cricketers like Kapil Dev, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh.

Marketing

Shoojit Sircar and Amitabh Bachchan questioned their fans on Twitter as to what they think the film title "Pink" is all about. Times of India had opened a contest in which 5 lucky winners would get a chance to meet Amitabh Bachchan and other 10 winners would get free movie tickets of the movie -Pink. The winners were announced on 15-September-2016.

The world television premier was held on 23 – October 2016 on Star Gold and to commemorate the same, Amitabh Bachchan's house Jalsa, Carter Road Promenade and SNDT Women's University were illuminated in pink colour.

The title of the film has no relationship as being the favourite colour of girls but rather conveys that, women should have the freedom to speak and walk freely at night.

Critical reception

Meena Iyer of The Times of India and Shubha Shetty Saha of Indiatimes gave the film 4.5 stars. Mayank Shekhar from Mid Day gave the film 4/5 stars, saying, "The film, up until the closing credits, does not even visually describe the said incident. It grips you still with a gently piercing background score, moments of silence and dialogue, building up the tension, while the audience wonders what really could have happened one unfortunate night when three girls found themselves in a Surajkund resort with three guys."

Anna M.M. Vetticad of Firstpost called Pink a powerful film. Filmfare, India Today, Mumbai MIrror, Hindustan Times, The Statesman, and DNA have given 4/5 stars, highly appreciating the superlative performances, especially of Amitabh Bachchan. Critics like Anusha Iyengar and Mayank Shekhar called it movie of the year. Namrata Joshi of The Hindu also praised the film. Shubhra Gupta of Indian Express gave the film 3.5 stars.

Rajeev Masand from CNN-News18 rated the movie as 4.5/5 mentioning that "I left the cinema, my mouth dry at the end of Pink. This isn’t just an important film, but also excellently made. It’s a giant leap for Hindi cinema, and easily the best film this year".

Box office

Pink grossed approximately ₹4.32 crore on first day in India. The first weekend collection was ₹21.51 crore.

At the end of 7 days the domestic box office collection was ₹35.91 crore. Pink grossed ₹50 crore in first 10 days in India.

The lifetime box office collections in India is ₹68 crores.