Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey vs Darlings vs Thappad: Goose, gander, sauce

Alia Bhatt plays a domestic abuse survivor, and then avenger, in 'Darlings', streaming on Netflix.

That Kerala is trying to shed its misogynist image and is succeeding in doing this somewhat via the medium of cinema is there for all to see. The old stereotype macho Mallu man is increasingly flopping at the box office, as the state tries its best to establish its pro-women credentials. The latest film to make a point is Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey.

Director Vipin Das’s film picks the unglamorous subject of domestic abuse and manages to satirise it better than the Hindi outing Darlings did. Both films attempt to present wife-beating in normal believable settings, and shuffle the comic part to when the wife hits back. How much humour can such situations provide in a country where domestic violence is a casual reality, is the question. Making the slap-happy husband a cartoonish villain whom the superwoman wife eventually vanquishes can have its downsides – because it could meander into fairy tale land.

Thappad, directed by Anubhav Sinha, narrowed it down to one slap. It was easy to stand by Amrita (a role that actor Taapsee Pannu did complete justice to) as she came to terms with the inherent lack of respect accorded to her in that one moment of her husband’s stress, as others tried to dismiss it. The easy route of apology and forgiveness was available, and many have taken it before to buy peace and obey family expectations, but Amrita took the uphill route. Her husband’s last words to her, therefore, rang true. He misses her, wants her back, and this time he wants to make sure he knows how lucky he is every step of the way. She doesn’t jump at the offer, thankfully.

How men come off in these stories, where the heroism is completely reserved for the female protagonist, has to be convincing and that particular empathy walks the tightrope. Their horribly entitled childhoods, their easily injured masculine pride, the manly mask, the duties and responsibilities they blame for their anger – the cinematic versions have the added ask of being entertaining, to infuse levity, to bring out the absurd while maintaining tensions. Even as Jaya Jaya… and Darlings manage the wit part, perhaps the drama of revenge, woman to man, is handled better in the former. Jaya (Darshana Rajendran) takes matters into her own hands, literally, when she realises self-help is the best help.

For a hero to stand out, the villains must convince us of their villainy, which the entire cast of Jaya Jaya… manages to do. The husband (Basil Joseph) gets every note right from start to finish, so does his family, which goes a long way in making Jaya’s caped act an eventuality. His inner struggle to retain her as a partner is visible now and then, especially towards the end, but then genes win.

The war of the sexes always boils down to two people of opposite genders. A bedroom is after all the world’s narrowest battlefield. Making divorce the happy ending in films like Jaya Jaya… and The Great Indian Kitchen not only gives the plot its twist, it also opens up exit options to those stuck in such situations.