Men Not Allowed

I love the editing in Indian movies. It’s always going at 110%. I also love the likelihood that Indian movies will have at least one musical number. Both of these traits of Indian cinema are present in Men Not Allowed. As someone from the west, it’s deeply unusual to see so much visual effort put into a story such as this. With all the weird editing and music videos stripped away, Men Not Allowed is basically a soap opera.

Men Not Allowed indeed opens with a theme song and music video. The lyrics of the song are about how women deserve respect and rights. The song’s visuals feature the lead actresses dancing in their underwear. So, we’re off to a great start.

The plot of the film follows a woman named Tanya. Tanya works at her father’s company. The company hires model/actress Urmila for a new campaign. Urmila is uncomfortable with her male co-star and men overall. There’s a dramatic flashback where she is mistreated by men as motivation for this. However, Urmila also has a boyfriend named Vikram. But when Tanya confesses her feelings, Urmila gives lesbianism a shot. Both women receive push-back about how “unnatural” their relationship is. These external factors are a major cause in their romance eventually souring. As an act of revenge, Tanya marries Vikram. Urmila retaliates by marrying Tanya’s dad. It should be noted that Tanya’s dad is a misogynist who absolutely sucks.

I think Men Not Allowed was made with good and progressive intentions. Most of these are related to the treatment of women. Themes of respecting women and creepy men being bad weave through the movie. Tanya is not just a character but a representation of a smart, successful woman who puts up with a lot of bullshit. Tanya’s dad is there to represent all this bullshit in one guy. The men in this movie are not exactly saints. They’re primarily there to make a point about how poorly women are treated. While it lacks subtlety, the film is fairly successful in its depiction of sexism. It focuses on quite a lot of negative behaviours from men. And because there’s no subtlety, there’s no possible misunderstanding as to how we’re supposed to read such behaviours.

The gay stuff is less successful. Men Not Allowed does have a gay happy ending. That alone suggests the film is trying to be an ally to the gay community. But it’s some flawed allyship. The constant barrage of people saying how unnatural this gay relationship is really wore on me. While it’s voiced by unlikable characters, this opinion gets more screen time than the opinion that being gay is okay. Even Tanya and Urmila’s reunion suffers from some bad takes on homosexuality. They reunite after Urmila attempts suicide following a miscarriage. Tanya initially takes all the blame for these events. Then, Urmila says they share the blame. But there shouldn’t be any blame! Nothing they did was wrong! The film overall says gay is okay. But there’s some pretty major fine print. Gay is okay, but there will be major repercussions that hurt you and your loved ones.

Outside of the film’s themes, the story is pretty bad. Like I said, it’s basically a soap opera. Everyone veers into emotional highs from seemingly no build up. Tanya’s love confession to Urmila comes far too quickly, for example. And nothing in the dissolution of their relationship warranted the revenge of marrying ex-boyfriends or fathers. The dialogue is also extraordinarily blunt and unsubtle. There’s not a lot of poetic observations or character quirks. Everyone just bluntly says what they’re thinking and what they want. And somehow despite this blunt dialogue, there are so many misunderstandings. Anything to get the movie to an hour and 55 minutes.

While I respect its attempts at progressive themes, Men Not Allowed isn’t good. Its story is weak and no amount of maximalist editing will fix that. The editing absolutely make it way more fun, though. I certainly prefer this story with crazy close-ups and cutaways to music videos. Imagining the story as a standard, American indie film with minimalist editing sounds like a much worse time. If nothing else, Men Not Allowed is one of very few WLW movies with a theme song. Western cinema, take note. If you’re gonna make a bad movie, at go balls to the wall on the editing. And give it a theme song. I think every WLW movie should have a theme song.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

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