Thank You For Coming Review: Bhumi Pednekar Chick-Flick On Female Pleasure Is As Satisfactory As A Fake Orgasm
I got the D... Disappointment.
2 / 5
A fake orgasm is more sad than bad. There’s still sex and an attempt to pleasure. The lie about having had the orgasm is often born out of empathy you might’ve felt for the other person’s feelings. It’s sad because, with a little more knowledge, open communication, and effort, the Big O could’ve been achieved. Karan Boolani’s Thank You For Coming has the same problem. Born of an exciting premise about the orgasm gap, it overpromises in its marketing and then underdelivers, both as a chick-flick and as a film that serves to educate about female pleasure. Thank you for the effort, but we women deserve more, don’t we? The film stars Bhumi Pednekar, Shehnaaz Gill, Dolly Singh, Shibani Bedi, Kusha Kapila, Sushant Divgikar, Karan Kundrra, Dolly Ahluwalia, Natasha Rastogi, Pradhuman Singh, Gautmik, Saloni Daini, and Anil Kapoor.
TYFC is written by Radhika Anand and Prashasti Singh, produced by Ekta Kapoor’s Balaji Motion Pictures and Rhea Kapoor under Anil Kapoor Films & Communications Network.
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I was rather excited about Thank You For Coming since it was announced and more after the buzz around its gala premiere at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival). Barbie confirmed just how overly critical people are of chick flicks, while films selling hypermasculinity get away with such crap. Female pleasure is a subject that is gradually getting addressed on screen, but rarely in a fun, peppy way. Women’s stories only matter when they are about the serious bits, not the itty bitty titty bits. Could this be the film that carried forth the side conversation that Rhea Kapoor’s Veere Di Wedding began about female pleasure?
To say I had expectations is an understatement. To say I was mostly disappointed is not.
Thank You For Coming is the story of Kanika Kapoor (Bhumi Pednekar), who confesses to her two best friends, Pallavi (Dolly Singh) and Tina (Shibani Bedi), on her 32nd birthday that despite a string of boyfriends since school, she has never had an orgasm. We get a montage that somewhat explains this. Born out of wedlock to a feminist gynaecologist mother (Natasha Rastogi) and raised by a grandmother (Dolly Ahluwalia, charming as usual but with not much to do) who taught her to reign in her impulses, Kanika is often torn between being her true self and being the Delhi society-approved version of what women ought to be. She’s teased for being a virgin, then slut-shamed for having a dating life, and her non-existent-daddy issues mean her choice in men is questionable.
The ticking clock, and a series of events, make Kanika say yes to marrying Jeevan (a sincere and effective Pradhuman Singh), a rich Delhi boy who worships the ground she walks (or drunkly stumbles) on. But on the night of her roka, she finally has an orgasm. Which of the frogs was the prince who gave it to her? Kanika doesn’t remember. But in the quest for that answer, she’s going to have some unexpected revelations about herself.
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The biggest unexpected revelation that I had as an audience, though, was betrayal. The film’s marketing strategy thus far had been quite impressive, choosing to do things like standup gigs with female comics rather than boring, serious interviews with the same old “Spill the tea, sis” vibe. But an hour into the film the illusion that this is a story about a group of four girl friends was shattered.
The friendships in Thank You For Coming are so thinly etched out, that it’s almost frustrating to fathom why these girls are even friends. Their conversations are funny only because the actors delivering those lines make it organically so. Both Dolly Singh and Shibani Bedi, though underutilised, play their parts well. But there’s no interplay between these three characters or scenes written for them that convey the depth of their friendship. Nor do they address the central theme of female pleasure with any tact. It’s all so laughably superficial that I felt cheated by the film’s promotional claims. This isn’t Sex And The City as the promotional photos would have you believe. This is barely even And Just Like That.
Shehnaaz Gill’s character Rushi starts as the sexiest and most likeable of all, her chemistry with Bhumi is through the roof. But she ends up merely a device in a male character’s arc after throwing some pearls of wisdom at Kanika in her cute, charming style. Kusha Kapila is pretty much an NPC here, utterly wasted. She’s in about five scenes in the film, of which she’s speaking in barely two of them. Except for Bhumi, the bigger character arc, compared to all the other girls in the film, belongs to Sushant Divgikar aka Rani KoHeNur’s Rahul, and this is one character that got the most hoots from me and my fellow theatre companions! Yet, even this character’s journey felt so rushed and token. We need to talk about the subjects that are addressed here, but if you’re going to make a film about them, they cannot be a tick mark on a checklist in the protagonist’s journey. It’s literally the film’s message, guys, how could the writing fail that?
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If anything, TYFC feels like a runway show of social media stars (and a bizarre track involving Anil Kapoor), who’re there merely to generate buzz, until the real showstopper walks in. In this case, it is poised to be Bhumi Pednekar’s Kanika Kapoor. But there’s nothing remarkable there too. One of the early reviews from TIFF compared her character to Bridget Jones’. And as someone for whom both chick-lit and chick-flicks are sacred, this comparison felt profane.
Bhumi Pednekar as Kanika Kapoor is occasionally, unintentionally funny, but not as often relatable. She makes bad decisions, is whiny, and evokes pity. Fresh off watching the final season of Sex Education, I couldn’t help but spot similarities between TYFC and the Netflix show that is a benchmark in conversations about sex, relationships, and pleasure. Both Otis and Kanika have gynaecologist mothers and struggle with the whiplash that is born of having a parent who is more ideologically and sexually rebellious than they are. Both are unable to achieve sexual satisfaction because of a warped sense of self and past trauma. And both are inherently unlikeable protagonists, that would have to take us, the audience, on a journey of eventually understanding, empathising, and appreciating them in the end.
In Kanika’s case, that journey cannot happen, because we’re barely allowed to know who she is and why her problems deserve our empathy. If Ken’s job in Barbie is just beach, Kanika’s entire personality in Thank You For Coming is just… bad sex. There’s nothing else we know about who Kanika Kapoor is other than her dating life troubles. The real cameo in the film is not Anil Kapoor’s, it is Kanika’s job, which has a blink-and-you-miss appearance. You’ll have to watch the film too carefully to spot it.
Also Read: Joy Ride Review: The Thirsty, Chaotic, Asian Chick-Flick You Should Watch With Your Girl Gang!
Why does she do what she does? Why is she friends with Pallavi and Tina? Are Pallavi and Tina such bad friends that Kanika could never talk to them about her sex life? Why is anyone in Kanika’s life letting her get married to a guy she doesn’t like, and invite her exes to her wedding? What is happening here!? The answers are as elusive and non-existent as the g-spot. It’s like the makers knew the beginning and the climax and went for it, without bothering with the foreplay that would lubricate everything, reduce friction, and heighten the pleasure.
The answer to the central mystery of this film, which is reduced to a mere whodunnit about Kanika’s orgasm with a sub-plot of slut-shaming, becomes apparent before the interval. I can’t even claim female intuition; it’s that predictable. But see, predictable is fine, because it is the journey and the evolving relationships on the way that matter. However, here, there’s no such connection established, with cardboard characters, superficial friendships, and a climax that is a badly executed version of a pivotal scene from Sex Education that would never, I repeat, NEVER, happen in a Delhi school.
In fact, at one point, I wondered why Kanika’s mother Bina needed to be a gynaecologist. Natasha Rastogi’s character could’ve had so much to offer here in that capacity, but the writing carelessly sweeps all of that to the side with just one conversation between the mother and daughter, ending in an epiphany. It had the potential to be something moving but never ascended into a substantial discussion about women’s conditioning and why, despite having a parent as liberal as hers, Kanika could never talk about pleasure openly.
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Verdict
I really wished I had something different to say, but this search for the Big O has ended with me getting the D. Disappointed. TYFC is lukewarm, both as an effort to talk about female pleasure beyond the superficial and be a chick-flick that I’d put on to watch with my gang on girls’ night. Our IRL conversations are far more interesting.
Thank You For Coming gets props for its sex-positive intent, to have a conversation about how important female pleasure is, not just in marriage but in the grand scheme of one’s life. But we’re way past just the thought counting. We deserve an execution that blows our minds. Kab tak orgasm fake karte rahenge? Take a cue from the earlier seasons of Sex Education, or closer to home, from Konkona Sen Sharma’s segment in Lust Stories 2 which unabashedly shows pleasure with characters that are more than just their sex drives. The film also made me want to see more of Dolly Singh, Shibani Bedi, and Sushant Divgikar on screen because there’s some real potential there. I will be playing ‘Haanji’, ‘Desi Wine’, and ‘Pari Hoon Main’ on loop.
I strongly believe that the world needs more chick flicks. But we women are finally starting to know our worth, and the bare minimum just won’t do, whether in relationships, in bed, or in the movies that are explicitly meant to entertain us.
Thank You For Coming is currently in theatres.
