A lot of Indian Hindi movies play near me so I always keep an eye on the selection to see if any particular movie piques my interest. When I saw Kangana Ranaut’s name, it seemed familiar so I decided to check out her resume, and I immediately realized that I loved her in Minkarnika: Queen of Jhansi. While I may not have committed her name to memory and would not recognize her in the street, Ranaut is an actor that I trust so I decided to see Panga. This film is about a mother and wife who loves her family, but realizes that something is missing from her life. Her husband and son realize that she is missing her first love, kabaddi, a sport that I have zero familiarity with, but considering that I am a sports atheist, that is not a regional issue, but a taste issue though I overheard other people in the theater shocked that a sport exists that they never knew of its existence. There is a whole world outside of the US! The rest of the movie depicts the challenges that the family faces as a whole and individually when they decide that mom needs to be the priority too.
I love Indian sports drama movies that center women. I only saw one before, Dangal, but Panga is the second one, and I think that it is a trend. Usually American movies that have family values are more likely to suffer from low production values, are too simplistic, feel regressive or insult your intelligence, but somehow Indian movies have managed to push more progressive values within a family context. Maybe it is propaganda, but it is fresh for me, and I adored Panga.
Panga felt as if it featured normal, average people, not perfect people. The married couple loved each other and were happy. The kid was cute, but could be a little jerk. The depiction of romance was ordinary. Unlike most movie couples, you would not need a disclaimer not to try this in real life. She praises him because he has a good government job, and he is a goofball. There is a realistic view of a family that loves each other, and yet the mother and wife is clearly dissatisfied without it being a dramatic, midlife crisis event. She is not entirely fulfilled. Her job sucks.
Panga also understood the value of friendships among women and knew how to depict it realistically. The best friend acted as a suitable foil and injected humor into the proceedings, but a new friend is introduced into the mix. It was refreshing to see women as friends and colleagues instead of friends formed in relation to their children’s relationships. The movie creates a scenario where women can develop new friendships while still being a part of a family.
While Panga is encouraging women to reenter the workforce to do what they love, it is also frank that there are obstacles to readjusting to a new environment and challenges. I loved that sometimes the protagonist was the biggest obstacle because it was easier to just rest on her laurels as a mother and wife than to strive and do something that she may no longer be physically capable of achieving. There was the real possibility that she could not cut it anymore. The movie emphasizes how experience can increase one’s strategic intelligence in the workplace so while older women may not have the same stamina as their younger counterparts, they also have an inner strength to draw from. My obstacle would be having a roommate as an adult. I just can’t.
Panga never glamorizes how easy everything will be. The husband is never able to perfectly replicate his wife’s maintenance of the home or care for the son. The movie stresses that men and children have to make sacrifices and get comfortable with all the inconveniences if they really want to encourage wives and mothers to get out of the house. There have to be sacrifices, and it cannot always be the women of the house who make them for the family to function. I am not going to lie. When things got tense, I completely did not understand why those particular moments were the tipping point, but others were not. What is the big deal? I also loved that they occasionally had to protect her from knowing how much they were really messing up when she was not around to pick up the slack. It was also lovely to see a father and son delight in spending time with each other without any seething resentment.
Panga did not have any villains although the closest one is a team captain who clearly looks at the protagonist as past her prime and a bit of a glory hound. Whenever people behave badly, the movie later gives the person a moment where it balances out their negative behavior. The film also shows how it takes a village for a family and a team to function.
Panga cannot be a sports movie without having a little Indian propaganda. The protagonist is a good player because she puts the team above herself and prioritizes India’s victory over her own personal fulfillment. This plot point is a lesson that is constantly hammered home at the denouement and must also be learned by the family.
Clearly Panga was made for audiences familiar with kabaddi, but as an outsider, what got lost in translation was the contrast between the protagonist and how others typically play the game. I did not have any objective idea of what made her special though I believed it based on how people reacted to her. I really relied on the acting and the emotional clues to understand how the game was going. Also I did not understand how it was a national sport, but the regions were divided by railways. I guess that the government owns the railways, and it is the easiest way to create regions, but I am also sure that the government is not structured that way. Shrug. It dd not ruin my enjoyment of the film, but I definitely did not understand.
I loved how the US was not germane to Panga. There is one section in which a lot of older American players are referenced, specifically tennis players, including Serena Williams. It is nice to remember that we are not a consideration for whole swaths of the world, and it is a relief to not be centered in a film. Instead countries that were relevant to the plot were Bangladesh, Thailand, Iran, South Korea and Sri Lanka.
I normally prefer that narratives are linear and in chronological order, but I loved that it established the character dynamics then contrasted it with who she was, someone who even superficially seemed like a completely different person so when we returned to the person that she is, we knew what she was aiming for in her mind while understanding on some level that was impossible. The montage sequences of happy family life, training and missing each other were perfect, or I just love cheese.
I know that I am not the typical American, but I chose Panga over the Super Bowl, and I am thrilled that I did. I stand for Ranaut as a quality actor who chooses quality entertainment with universal values that anyone can appreciate. I cannot wait to see what her next film will be!