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★★★★★
Directed by: #SaurabhThakur
Written by: #SaurabhThakur
Starring: #SadiyaSiddiqui, #EnabKhizra, #SidharthBhardwaj, #ShivJhaMathur, #Preeti, #Sandhya, #MonicaArora, #AbhinavDandge
SPOILER ALERT
“Every time you suffer in silence a new victim is born. Speak up.” A powerful parting message from a powerful and poignant film. This to-the-point examination of #domesticviolence doesn’t pull any punches in its delivery; getting the message across eloquently and candidly.
The film’s title, Inheritance, refers to the inheritance of silence in the face of #domesticviolence the mother has unwittingly passed down to her daughter, Divya. Having suffered violence at the hands of her husband, the mother is told to “bear it” and “think of your daughter” by family and friends in a heartbreaking flashback sequence; brought on after spotting her old makeup kit, which she had used to cover up the evidence of violence for years. Then, when Divya enters sporting fresh bruises of her own, the look of guilt and pain on the mother’s face as she’s made to realise the consequences of her own silence are deeply felt and equalled only by the sheer look of embarrassment and shame on Divya’s face; the same embarrassment and shame her mother likely felt years before.
It’s this mother and daughter pairing that really stole the show for me (although the cast is excellent throughout). The relatively brief time they share on-screen creates the film’s most poignant and affecting scene, one which can be seen as a defining moment for both women. Divya, after inadvertently revealing she’s the victim of #abuse sits down, just like her mother, to apply her makeup, saying only “I know, mum. I understand…”
The remainder of the scene contains no dialogue; only tenderly crafted and achingly beautiful close-ups, in which the absolutely first-rate #cinematography from Ram Babu Gupta allows the camera to linger on our mother-daughter duo; who convey more with a few glances of guilt and shame than any amount of dialogue could. But it's that final moment, in which Divya's mother gently takes the makeup sponge from her now inconsolable daughter's hand, returns it to the makeup box and closes the lid that marks the turning point for these women; it practically screams 'we will not suffer in silence anymore!’.
It's an uplifting and empowering end to a film with an otherwise dour atmosphere. The way in which the story comes full circle really hammers the idea home that #domesticabuse can be a generational issue, sometimes, even a cultural one. The film's many parts come together to create a deeply moving experience, one you're not likely to forget anytime soon. Indeed, this is a remarkable piece of filmmaking which needs to be seen by as many people as possible and the importance of its message cannot be undervalued.
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