Lockdown movie review: Anupama Parameswaran film on survivor's choice is marred by moral messaging

Lockdown movie plot:

It’s 2020 and just a few months before Covid-19 pandemic hit. Anitha (Anupama Parameswaran) is a young woman from a middle-class family, who struggles to get job amid her parents’ night-shift restriction. In one of her job-hunting endeavours, she ends up at a party and sloshed for the first time. About three months later, Anita makes a startling discovery. But she is helpless with the lockdown restrictions and not being able to open up to her family.

Lockdown movie review:

If taken in the recent past, 2020 must be that year which thwarted plans of everyone, tested resilience, and been year of tough decisions and outcome. Losses, and unreversible changes beyond, 2020 saw not so desirable tests of endurance, thanks to Covid-19 and lockdowns that followed. This film’s protagonist, Anita, too is one of those whose life was put to test. But Lockdown as a movie, begins as a generic template of a protagonist’s struggle, only to end up as a lousy message-propagating film that wants to address one thing and puts its concentration on something else.

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After a generic start to Lockdown, filled with typical heroine introduction and party songs, a middle-class setup, the conflict of the film begins. Anitha who is rejoiced over getting a job that can potentially uplift her family, finds that she is three months pregnant. However, she has no memory of having intercourse, thanks to her unconscious state after attending a party. Not able to confide to her conservative household, and thanks to doctors who refuse to terminate her three-month old pregnancy, Anitha only has her friend by her side to confide. But when every means, from pills to surgery for abortion, shows no door to Anitha, her life spirals down.

It is interesting to note how a film that talks about a woman shown nothing but apathy when wanting to abort her pregnancy that was result of an abuse, is a film that is pro-parent. While thankfully the film never attempts to talk about pro-life, there is enough and more on stress on parental values and the importance of winning over them, and placing them and their expectations above all. Earlier in the film, we are shown how Anitha’s father witnesses his boss’ daughter elope to get married to a man of her choices, only to leave her parents disheartened. They subsequently die by suicide, leaving Anitha forever guilt-trapped from talking about her situation to her mother or father. Not only that, but after the two-hour long runtime showing Anitha’s struggle to find means to abort without her parents’ knowledge, Lockdown scrolls with a message that talks about greatness of parental love. Not debating on the message, but it comes out as a sore thumb for a film that detailed the rues of a woman who wants to exercise her body rights in India. Even with a talented Anupama Parameswaran fronting the story, Lockdown lacks clarity. Say how we never understand why doctors refuse to abort Anitha’s 3.5-month-old pregnancy and even threaten to call police.

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Lockdown has some really standout points that are subtle yet throughout the film. Never does Anitha want to find out the culprit who got her into this situation while she was unconscious. Instead, it is always about Anitha’s next steps to get herself out of the situation. In doing so, she is backed by her friend Swapna, who goes lengths and beyond to become a protective shield for her friend. There are no sloppy dialogues on gratefulness or emotional tonality when the two girls come together to face Anitha’s problems. But such little nudges in the story remain just little and vanish in the bigger picture. More so, do we get to know who Swapna is, and what is the situation around her household? No. Do we understand how the two young women are on the streets even as the pandemic hits its peak? Lockdown gets into comfort zone in those spaces. Perhaps, the story could have established far more detailing into these rather than have men drool over Anitha’s curly locks.

The film had immense space to get into the cracked version of society that looks at abortion as unfathomable concept, and how a woman who has all the rights over her body, having anything but that. Even as the second half details the darker crevices and networks of how abortions and under the counter dealings take place, Lockdown loses its ground with its narrative storytelling.

Lockdown movie verdict:

Lockdown places its messaging above the core story it tells. A film that had scope to explore the body rights of a woman and the modus operandi that thrives in the underbelly of Indian medical fraternity, Lockdown, despite its honest Anupama at the forefront, misses the mark to imprint anything worthwhile.