Lipstick Under My Burkha
- Director
- Alankrita Shrivastava
- Studio
- Prakash Jha Productions
- Release Date
- 20 July 2017
- Running Time
- 117 min
- Language
- Hindi
- Country
- India
- Budget
- ₹6.00 Cr
- Box Office
- ₹26.68 Cr
Review
Alka Amin's "Lipstick Under My Burkha" is a remarkably assured debut that transcends its modest production profile to deliver genuine emotional resonance and social commentary. The film's structural conceit—using Usha's erotic novel as a narrative frame to explore four women's parallel journeys—could have felt gimmicky, but instead it becomes a powerful statement about female agency and the inner lives that society refuses to acknowledge. Amin's direction is patient and observant; she allows quieter moments to breathe while maintaining narrative momentum across four distinct character arcs. The performances are uniformly strong, particularly Konkona Sen Sharma's nuanced turn as the trapped Shireen and Plabita Borthakur's luminous Rehana, whose college transformation isn't played as liberation fantasy but as genuine self-discovery tinged with necessary deception.
What's most impressive is how the film balances comedy with genuine gravity—the salon sequences crackle with humor and camaraderie, yet Shireen's domestic violence remains viscerally uncomfortable and unresolved in ways mainstream Hindi cinema typically avoids. The screenplay's willingness to let these women's desires exist without moral judgment (sexual, professional, adventurous) was genuinely transgressive for Indian cinema in 2017. If there's a weakness, it's that the interconnected plotting occasionally feels stretched, and the climactic house party sequence prioritizes spectacle over the character work that pre
Storyline
So basically, this movie centers around four women living in the same neighborhood in Bhopal, and their stories are all intertwined in really interesting ways. There's this older widow named Usha who secretly reads this spicy novel about a character called Rosy, and while she's reading it, we get to see what's actually happening in her neighbors' lives. Each of these women is dealing with her own stuff—some pretty heavy, some funny, some both at the same time.
Rehana is this young woman who's supposed to wear a burkha because her family demands it, but once she gets to college, she completely transforms into this jeans-wearing, Miley Cyrus-loving version of herself. Then there's Leela, a beautician running her own salon, who's dreaming of traveling the world with her boyfriend Arshad and keeps trying to score free trips by offering their services to wedding planners. Meanwhile, Shireen's dealing with something way more serious—she's stuck in an abusive marriage and working secretly as a saleswoman just to have some independence.
The vibe of the whole film is watching these women navigate their lives while trying to find moments of freedom and self-expression, whether that's through stealing makeup, chasing dreams, or just finding ways to be themselves. Things start picking up when Rehana gets invited to a cool house party and scores some new clothes to wear, but I don't want to spoil where everything goes from there!
