The Many "Cinematic Adjustments" of Umrao Jaan

If the earlier cinematic adaptation of Umrao Jan Ada compromised the actual depth of the novel according to this review, the new one obliterates it altogether.

The director really seems to have a flair for fucking up a poignant, feminist (yes, it is feminist, and a 19th-century Urdu male novelist wrote it) message and turning it on its head to fixate obsessively on redeeming the whore by making her have no desire for emotional or financial independence, crave for her emotions and sexuality to be caged and confined by one man, forgive her unremorseful rapist, and at the end of the movie give a present to dude that sold her into a brothel at the beginning of the movie. The latter gesture might make you think she has reconciled something in her perspective to break free of shackles once and for all -- of society, of the brothel, of her unsupportive family, of the mental agony from the many men who have screwed her over -- but think again; it's Ash. She is a complete victim to the end, never finding any place in the narrative for growth or empowerment. To top that, they kept playing a song with the refrain "Agle janam mohe bitiya na dije" = "In my next life don't give me a daughter."

Congratulations, J.P. Dutta, for taking a brilliantly rich commentary on the contrived and inherently oppressive dichotomy between a "respectable woman" and a "whore," and turning it into a four-hour public service announcement for sex selection.

A terrible movie. Two middle fingers up.