OMG2 Is Not A Film, It’s A Movement

Rating: *** ½

Ohh that ‘M’ word. You know…what teenagers do in the bathroom.. Bolne bhi sharm aati hai…Lekin karne mein nahin…

At one point  in  this audacious unconventional mystical  satirical and tragic  exposition on…errrr…auto-eroticism, Pankaj Tripathi fighting his own case in a court of law where his teenaged son is accused of obscenity , turns around to ask, “Why is it okay to  talk about  various body parts  and  not  the penis  and vagina?”

Go ahead, and gasp. OMG2 is all about the penis  and less about the vagina.  But I am sure we will get there soon.Maybe in OMG3.

OMG2  gives us  a lot to feel positive  about. In  a  society that still giggles on seeing a romantic kiss on screen , here is  a  film talking about masturbation and why it is time to normalize  it after years of demonizing  the hand  shake.

The best part of this  illuminative exercise is its eschewal of self congratulation.The tone is never patronizing. It’s not  like a converted  preacher  telling us to get woke. It’s more the tone of collective bewilderment at  the ignorance that drives young men to feel guilty  every time they extend  a hand of empathy for their own satisfaction and pleasure.

Miraculously the ‘M’ word for self-pleasure is  allowed to be  used even in the courtroom.

This brings me to Pavan Malhotra… Does he  ever let a  film down even if it lets him down? This time as the judge presiding over  a very  unusual case where the  defendant and the accused are the one and the  s(h)ame , Malhotra is on solid ground. So are all the  other actors.

The ever-dependable  Pankaj Tripathi shoulders  the film with  an ease and sensitivity that are very  reassuring at a time when  hamming is  considered  great acting.But clearly, the  film’s central attraction is  Akshay Kumar’s  Lord Shiva act. He  belches  out gyan as though it were  going out of fashion. He is  the guiding light  that shows his skill to kill a scene effortlessly. It takes guts to play God with such temerity confidence and cool.

Some films are  much  larger than the  immediate story that’s being told. This is  one  of them. The  story of a boy caught masturbating  in his school toilet,acquires a far wider  spectrum as  the writing  on the wall becomes  a mirror to societal  hypocrisy.

  To bring into the open the  issue of sex education in our schools , writer-director Amrit Rai uses  tools as varied as crude sex talk and  references to  the Kamasutra .  The  commodious  plot  holds together well for most of the way except when  the frauds selling sex  potions, lotion and commotions  are lined up for  ridicule very crudely.

What stays  with  us  is the boy Vivek’s anguish as he is treated  like a criminal for masturbating in  a society where  two- year old girls  get  raped.

   Just when we think irony can  go no further, OMG2 comes along to remind us that the cultural  contradictions of a society such as ours are susceptible to  endless flux and some thoughtful  cinematic  interpretation.

Thank God , a film like this gets made. It gives us hope that cinema is indeed  a tool for change.