Review of the Assi film: Taapsee Pannu and Kani Kusruti feature in an urgent, necessary call to arms that is a must-see

No. This isn't possible. Not in Delhi, where it is dangerous to be out after sunset. Not in India, where even infants and elderly women are not spared by predators. When schoolteacher Parima (Kani Kusruti) is dragged into a car and brutally attacked by a group of men, Anubhav Sinha's Assi, which alludes to the number of rapes that occur in a minute, doesn't waste any time in dragging us into the depths of darkness. The hours of a night that turns into a nightmare begin when she returns to her modest middle-class home from a function at a colleague's residence, where her husband Vinay (played by Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and young son (Advik Jaiswal) are waiting.As a telling aside, the principal of Parima's school (Seema Pahwa, in a cameo) is reluctant to allow her to return to work because, in her own words, neither she nor the students are ready. The teenage boys in Parima's math class, who post offensive remarks on their WhatsApp groups, are just as complicit in the continuation of rape culture as the loud-mouthed supporters of the status quo who let monsters run amok.

Even while the frequent use of the red screen verges dangerously close to being gimmicky, the entire movie is completely and purposefully in your face, with the directors obviously expecting that you would never be able to get it out of your head and heart. It serves as a mirror to people who refuse to recognise how difficult it is for women to be out on their own, whether they are in playgrounds, on public transportation, crossing streets, or even in their own homes. No location is secure.The verbal altercations between the rapists' lawyer (Satyajit Sharma), who is overseen by an experienced judge (Revathi), and the feisty Raavi (Taapsee Pannu, who rejoins Sinha after "Mulk" and "Thappad"), who defends Parima's case, may bring to mind Sinha's earlier films, which used the courtroom as a battlefield to stake out the ethical and moral ground that was quickly slipping from under our feet.