{"id":3255,"date":"2016-07-02T08:50:40","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T03:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3255"},"modified":"2026-07-17T20:27:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T14:57:30","slug":"stree-review-rajkummar-rao-shraddha-kapoor-pankaj-tripathi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3255","title":{"rendered":"Stree Review: A New World Where Men Live in Fear of Women"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/span><\/p><\/div>

he opening credits of debutant director Amar Kaushik\u2019s <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i> asserts that the film is based on a \u201cridiculous phenomenon\u201d. <\/span>It refers to<\/span><\/a> the <\/span>Telugu <\/span><\/a>urban legend \u201cStree Re Pura\u201d (Stree, come tomorrow) that Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK (the film\u2019s producers, also credited for the screenplay) encountered in Tirupati in 2013. It piqued their curiosity and they learnt from the locals that the words were scribbled on the walls of their houses to ward off the evil spirit of a woman who would abduct men at night.<\/span>\n\nFive years on, that phrase makes it to the big screen as \u201cO Stree, kal aana\u201d (Stree, come tomorrow). In the film, residents of Chanderi, a small town in <\/span>Madhya Pradesh<\/span><\/a>, religiously inscribe the words on the walls of their home during an annual four-day-long puja to protect the town\u2019s helpless men from a female spirit called Stree. She haunts the town during this puja \u2013 a clever play to imply <\/span>menstruation<\/span><\/a> maybe. Stree terrorises men by calling out their names thrice before taking them hostage and leaving behind only their clothes. The film\u2019s writers confidently label this as the spirit \u201casking for <\/span>consent<\/span><\/a>\u201d from its victims, proving that there\u2019s still a long way to go before we all grasp that consent is a two-way street. They mine the leftover clothes \u2013 the underwear and vest \u2013 for humour and <\/span>as you can probably tell, it doesn\u2019t elicit a laugh. <\/span>\n\nDespite the horror-comedy\u2019s tendency to over-explain, it\u2019s hard to not be amused by <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i>\u2019s imaginative premise: A world where men are afraid to step out of their homes after dark. A world where <\/span>women<\/span><\/a> have the luxury of roaming about freely in the night without worrying about any untoward incidents. A world where women instruct men to not step out after 7 pm because \u201cit won\u2019t be safe\u201d for them and the men beg the women to \u201ccome back home soon\u201d because they\u2019re scared of being home alone. In short, a world where gender roles are reversed \u2014 and men are forced to comply with impractical rules of society and police their behaviour for no fault of their own. <\/span>\n\nJust like <\/span>Ghoul<\/span><\/i><\/a>, even <\/span>Stree <\/span><\/i>takes forward the baton of employing a supernatural intervention to imagine a better and safer world. It implies that Stree petrifies the town\u2019s men to avenge the disrespect they\u2019ve meted out to her, but it might as well have been motivated by her need to make the streets safer for women. <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i> exploits this subversion rather smartly: In one hilarious scene, a group of macho men, including the film\u2019s lead Vicky (a hammy <\/span>Rajkummar Rao<\/span><\/a>) chickens out of venturing into the jungle to confront the evil spirit. In another, Dana (Abhishek Banerjee), Vicky\u2019s goofy sidekick, fears for his life on a deserted street, and screams when he spots a woman. It\u2019s not everyday that you witness a film that demands that men walk a mile in a woman\u2019s painful shoes: In the<\/span> climax, a man is even asked to sacrifice his body to save the honour of the town. <\/span>\n\n\"Stree\n

\n

Pankaj Tripathi and his \u201cHum sab jaante hai\u201d single-handedly invigorates Stree\u2019s second-half with personality, charm, and all-out humour.<\/p>\n

Image Credit: Maddock Films<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n\nBut it is <\/span>Pankaj Tripathi\u2019s<\/span><\/a> pitch-perfect Rudra (completely outshining Rao) \u2013 the town bookstore owner with a \u201cHum sab jaante hai\u201d attitude \u2013 who single-handedly invigorates <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i>\u2019s second half with personality, charm, and all-out humour. It is here that the film\u2019s nicer moments occur in the little details: A widowed father sitting his son down for an impassioned talk about <\/span>sex education<\/span><\/a> and masturbation. A quaint town that treats the son of a <\/span>sex worker<\/span><\/a> like any other ordinary guy, pushing him in the process to look at the relationship that his parents shared as just another love story. <\/span>\n\nPerhaps the most strident parallel in the film is how it uses the message on the wall to expose the dilemma of women who can\u2019t reject outright, the advances of men for fear of consequences. Just the way most women find politer ways to say <\/span>\u201cNo\u201d<\/span><\/a> in the hope of not angering their admirers, the town\u2019s residents mirror that behaviour with a \u201cKal aana\u201d even when they really want Stree to leave them alone. <\/span>\n\nBut there\u2019s only so much an exciting premise can do for a bloated film that frequently loses its grip on its plot. <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i> suffers from the bane of underwritten women characters, glaring loopholes, needless sub-plots and songs, and a weak ending. It also doesn\u2019t help that a loud, jarring background score over-enthusiastically predicts every big moment. The worst part is that for a film that wants to change the way conservative society views women, <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i> dissolves into a problematic objectification of women: An item song with money shots of the dancer\u2019s cleavage and butt and Rajkummar \u201cmeasuring\u201d Shraddha Kapoor\u2019s body by touching her. It\u2019s this double standard that ensures that the world <\/span>Stree<\/span><\/i> builds will remain nothing more than a fantasy for women. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Amar Kaushik\u2019s Stree, gender roles are reversed: Men are forced to comply with society\u2019s impractical rules and police their behaviour for no fault of their own. The film uses its supernatural spirit to imagine a safer world for women, but fails to eventually carry it through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3258,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3114],"tags":[6351,6352,6353,6216,4452,6354,2152,6355,1015,6356,6357,2554],"class_list":["post-3255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bollywood","tag-amar-kaushik","tag-aparshakti-khurana","tag-female-objetification","tag-ghoul","tag-horror","tag-horror-comedy","tag-pankaj-tripathi","tag-rajkkumar-rao","tag-shraddha-kapoor","tag-stree","tag-stree-review","tag-vijay-raaz"],"yoast_head":"\nStree Review: A New World Where Men Live in Fear of Women<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In Amar Kaushik\u2019s Stree, gender roles are reversed: Men are forced to comply with society\u2019s impractical rules and police their behaviour for no fault of their own. 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