I don’t want you to spoil yourself on this movie, because there’s a whole lot of twists and things that aren’t in the trailer. But I DO want you to spoil yourself on this movie because there’s some bits where it feels like our heroines are doing the wrong thing, and I want you to know that it’s okay.
Whole plot in one paragraph”
Our 3 heroines are all flight attendants out of necessity to support their families while they wait for their dreams to come true (Tabu to open a restaurant with her husband, Kriti to get a job as a pilot, Kareena to start her own company). Their airline is running out of money and they aren’t getting paid. So they start smuggling gold out of the country and making extra money that way. Someone tips off customs (which ruins Kriti’s romance with customs officer Diljit Dosanjh), they avoid arrest but get fired and are shamed by their coworkers who have been struggling without pay while they’ve been enjoying their illgotten gains. And then they learn that the gold they were smuggling was for the owner of the airline, who was preparing to flee the country and live high off the money he embezzled and snuck out in gold. They are furious and shamed as they realize they were part of this corporate scam. So the three women go to the Middle East and try to steal the gold back. They eventually succeed by hijacking the private plane the company owner is taking to the Cayman Islands, set him up to be arrested by customs, and ride off in the sunset with the gold. Which they then distribute to the ripped off employees.
This movie is about the actresses and the characters. It is delightful to see these 3 strong actresses playing complex women. Tabu hates her job, hates the company, but loves her husband and this is their life. She works for the salary and the savings, he stays home and cooks and delivers food while they dream of someday opening a restaurant. Her backstory is being a spoiled Beauty Queen who married into a “good” family and then they ended up thrown out of the family and scrapping on their own. She isn’t booksmart, she isn’t ambitious, she’s just working because that’s life, you work for money. On the other hand, she loves her husband and vice versa and they have a healthy happy sex life. And they have their dreams that aren’t related to family or kids or anything else. Tabu turns to illegal behavior because she is driven to it, she is at the end of her working career and has been waiting for years for things to get better.
Kriti is tough and smart and the pride of her family. Yes she also has a brother, but her parents see her as the one who will go far. They take out loans for her education, they pin all their hopes on her job. That’s a lot to put on her, and it’s especially hard to put it on a woman because, when she isn’t able to get her dream job as a pilot, the best she can do is flight attendant. She’s not Tabu, who doesn’t even have a degree, she’s impressive and accomplished. But she’s also a woman so she has to be the main wage earner of her family, on the only jobs a woman can get. Kriti turns to illegal behavior because all her smarts and abilities and everything else can get her nothing legally.
And then there’s Kareena, the most interesting and complex of the heroines. Most of her co-workers hate her, most people around her dislike her. She is openly out to make money and get rich. The only person she seems to love is her grandfather who raised her. But on the other hand, she gives almost all her cash to the bathroom attendant as a tip, routinely. And she is the voice encouraging Kriti and Tabu to dream big, to spoil themselves, to see the unfairness of the system. If she truly didn’t care about anyone, why would she be trying to help Kriti and Tabu see things differently? In the end, she is just as disgusted and ashamed and angry about helping the rich stay rich by smuggling gold as the other two. She may say she is all about money, but she isn’t really.
The first third of the movie is watching these three women deal with their daily lives as working women, and that is really interesting. The last third of the movie is watching them understand the systemic injustices and try to take down the man who was stealing their wages and their pensions and destroying lives without caring, and part of that is smuggling gold. If you are hiding money, you are probably stealing money. And if you are smuggling money OUT from India (the movie makes the point many times how odd it is to smuggle gold out), then you are stealing from India.
The middle third is where it’s a little bleh. Partly that is on purpose, the filmmakers make sure we see the contrast of the three of them being happy and laughing while their coworkers are still scrapping by and desperate about money. So we the audience never get to FULLY enjoy their spending sprees. But part of that is not on purpose, the film is just hitting the plot points so it can get to part 3.
Making smuggling “wrong” is a tough sell in Hindi films. It’s been established for years and years as the “not that bad” sort of crime. But this film makes it work! Smuggling is rich people avoiding scrutiny on what they are doing with their money. So take it back a step, why don’t they want people to see what they are doing with their money????? What choices are they making? And what choices are they making FOR OTHERS???
The first third and the last third of this film balance just right. All these employees are hanging on waiting for their paychecks and their pension because they have no other options, it’s too hard to start over with a new job. They are powerless in the hands of their boss who is making selfish choices for himself. And then the women take that power back by stealing back the gold.
Maybe the middle bit is less satisfying because we know it isn’t the women taking their power back? They are still being paid for smuggling, they have just traded one uncaring male boss for another. And they take the money and give it to their families and to corporations instead of building their own powerblock. We have the first bit where we clearly see how the power structure has trapped them, and then we have the middle bit where they have money and they are being STUPID and staying in the same patterns. It has to be like that in order to get to the end where they understand what they were doing was just supporting the same oppressors. But it’s frustrating to watch and I think the filmmakers and actresses got a little bored creating it.
Anyway, watch the movie! Women supporting women, healthy loving equal marriage, complicated motivations and (best of all) an anti-corporations message!
