Bhakshak features exceptional performances from Bhumi Pednekar and Aditya Srivastava but does not fully do justice to its subject matter.
Director: Pulkit
Cast: Bhumi Pednekar, Aditya Srivastava, Sanjay Mishra, Sai Tamhankar
Where to watch: Netflix
Rating: 2.5 stars
The new Netflix social drama Bhakshak has everything – scathing political commentary, memorable performances, hard-hitting dialogue, and a real-world setting. And yet, the end result does not justify the ingredients director Pulkit had at his disposal. Bhakshak is a powerful film no doubt, a but a deeply flawed one that gives the impression of a missed opportunity, somehow made watchable by the people in front of the camera.
Loosely based on the Muzaffarpur shelter case from 2020, Bhakshak is set in the fictitious Bihar town of Munawwarpur, where small-time journalist Vaishali (Bhumi Pednekar) is trying to uncover the truth behind the sexual abuse and torture of dozens of minor girls at a shelter home in the city. Making her work difficult is the fact that the home is run by local strongman Bansi Sahu (Aditya Srivastava in a menacing turn). How Vaishali and her man Friday Bhaskar (Sanja Mishra) fight the systemic rut to get justice for the girls is the story of Bhakshak.
Bhakshak has its heart in the right place. It showcases the abuse faced by the girls at the shelter home in shocking fashion but never goes overboard with that depiction. The girls are presented as humans and not simply caricatures, which means the audience begins to care for them. The perpetrators’ perversions and the banality of their evil are on full display. The set up is top notch. But what follows this does not quite match up to the expectations created by the film.
Bhumi Pednekar brings back her A-game as Vaishali Singh, the small-town reporter who must fight both a corrupt system and a patriarchal family to get what she wants. Her dual battles at work and at home are relatable but nothing new, nothing we haven’t already seen in the Dahaads of the streaming world of late. Yet, Bhumi breathes life into the character effortlessly. Whatever clichés are there, she makes sure her natural performance masks them.
The real star of the show, however, is Aditya Srivastava. As the girls’ tormentor in chief Bansi Sahu, he is menacing, evil, methodical, and bone-chillingly calm. The actor shows why he has been the go-to choice for several Bollywoo auteurs for years. Many remember him from CID but to those of us, for whom he is Gulaal’s Karan and Black Friday’s Badshah Khan, this is a reminder of the actor’ calibre and class. The year is just beginning but Srivastava has already set the benchmark for negative performance this year. Sanjay Mishra and Sai Tamhankar are good additions to the cast with both bringing their experience to rather unidimensional roles but have very little to do.
What undoes Bhakshak is its sermonising tone. The film needed to be hard-hitting but very often, it veers into the preachy category. The dialogue Vaishali is given often reduces her toa neta giving bhaashan to the audience. Jyotsana Nath and Pulkit’s writing needed to be a bit more crisp to give this film the justice it needed in terms of pacing of the narrative.
But apart from acting, Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes’ background score is another redeeming factor for Bhakshak. That, coupled with Kumar Sourabh’s eerie cinematography transports the audience to this gloomy, pitiless world. The ambience stays with you, making Bhakshak a difficult watch ad rightly so.
Bhakshak is not a bad film but it is one that needed to be so much better. For now, watch it for the issue it raises, the real-life case it highlights, as well as two masterful performances from Bhumi Pednekar and Aditya Srivastava.
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