Get us in your inbox

Peepli Live

  • Film
  • 3 out of 5 stars
PUMP IT UP Manikpuri, left, and his neighbors admire a new household addition.
PUMP IT UP Manikpuri, left, and his neighbors admire a new household addition.
Advertising

Time Out says

3 out of 5 stars

Unlike satires that coast on winking self-satisfaction, Anusha Rizvi’s debut is both a heartfelt and a genuinely funny skewering of India’s convoluted caste-consciousness. Brothers Natha (Manikpuri) and Budhia (Yadav)—two hapless, beleagured peasants in the fictional village of Peepli—are on the verge of losing their land because of an unpaid bank loan. Amid a recent trend of farmer suicides (a real-life phenomenon in rural India), they overhear gossip about a government program that pays cash for crops. Crafty Budhia convinces his simpleton brother to make the ultimate sacrifice, but before the latter can follow through, a local reporter (Shenoy) makes him into a poster boy for societal discontent. Within hours the national press follows up, Natha’s impending death turns into a countrywide cliff-hanger, and sleepy Peepli becomes a 24/7 media carnival.

Compared with the paraded bloat of most Bollywood imports, Peepli Live is surprisingly restrained, patiently matching Manikpuri’s slack-jawed deadpan. Rizvi’s disaster pastoral directly recalls Billy Wilder’s accelerated descent into modern hell, Ace in the Hole, but she’s much more of a pragmatist than Hollywood’s legendary cynic. Her film mercifully stops short of sanctifying the poor or fully scorning the privileged, maintaining enough real-world complexity that all sides can recognize the mess.—Eric Hynes

Watch the trailer

More new Film reviews

Advertising
You may also like
You may also like

The best things in life are free.

Get our free newsletter – it’s great.

Loading animation
Déjà vu! We already have this email. Try another?

🙌 Awesome, you're subscribed!

Thanks for subscribing! Look out for your first newsletter in your inbox soon!