Laxmii (2020)
(Google Streaming, December 2021) I’ll admit it: I was really curious to see what an Indian comedy would do with a premise based on a transwoman ghost protagonist. As much as I like Indian cinema, there’s often a streak on conservatism going though its films that would not necessarily mesh well with the subject matter. I suspected trouble, but I couldn’t imagine the reality. Oh boy, did I not expect what I saw. Be reassured, readers and viewers, that Laxmii is not transphobic. In fact, in many ways, it’s far more progressive than many “innocuous” Hollywood comedies featuring transsexual characters. But that assessment best applies to very specific, very carefully selected segments of the film. Yes, there’s a fifteen-minute tragic flashback to how a transwoman fighting for acceptance gets brutally murdered by those coveting the real estate she owns. Yes, there’s a terrific dance number (“BamBholle,” an utter banger that you should watch right now) in which the transwoman character triumphantly bangs a drum for Shiva to ask for revenge on the man who masterminded her murder — “The one who works for the devil will die prematurely” is a sample lyric). But this comes after a terrible fifteen minutes of comedy in which the only joke is that the lead character, possessed by a transwoman ghost, acts in an effeminate fashion. Which comes after a laborious set-up with three successive prologues (one of which is a snappy but plot-irrelevant musical number) that do a terrible job at introducing the plot for the film. Akshay Kumar admittedly has moments of Jim-Carrey-esque vigour in the lead comic role, and Sharad Kelkar turns in a terrific performance as the wronged transwoman. Also, I do understand that, at 141 minutes, this masala-like film does try to have a little bit of everything for everyone. But while you can like the bits and pieces of the film (such as the Burj Khalifa musical interlude, fun but entirely irrelevant), Laxmii feels like it’s being pulled apart in various directions. Pieces of the film contradict each other, undermine each other, and weaken each other. The blend of silly comedy with light horror does not gel, and the film doesn’t feel as if it’s got a coherent identity. Something great could have come from the film’s premise, but instead it’s battered and trivialized by an incoherent execution that doesn’t know how to focus. Laxmii got terrible reviews in India and it’s easy to understand why — being so inconsistent ends up sabotaging even its best intentions.