New Delhi: The latest film from director Nandita Das, ‘Zwigato’, is based on the alarming reality of the ‘new India’, where an aerial perspective of the country reveals immense opportunities just waiting to be seized. But, the closer you get, the more of India’s dark underbelly is exposed, which still burns itself alive rather than surviving for days on nothing but air. Hunger is presumably what engulfs them alive; setting one on fire is just the final act.

In one of the scenes, an affluent bunch of men who are blessed with limitless data on their phones makes a mockery of a wage earner who set himself on fire after days of unemployment and no morsel of food on plate. Others, including a gas station employee and a delivery man, who could very well be the next victim in post-covid India that robbed so many people of their livelihood, silently witness the repulsive act.

The social commentary, which actually uses the family of a food delivery man as the narrative’s pivot, focuses on them along with numerous others who battle each day to bring bread for their families’ dinner tables.

‘Zwigato’, which is set in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, focuses on Manas (Kapil Sharma), a former factory manager who was compelled to remain at home without work for months due to virus outbreak layoffs. Manas is the sole breadwinner for his family of five, which comprises his wife Pratima (Shahana Goswami), their kids Kartik (Prajwal Sahoo) and Purbi (Yuvika Brahma), as well as his bed bound, mother Maai (Shantilata Padhy), makes the decision to become a partner with the food delivery business Zwigato.

The script by Das and Samir Patil opens the veil on the hardships of the gig economy and the impact of an evolving landscape on a lowly migrant family’s domestic routine.

As much as the movie is about Manas, the central protagonist, it’s also about the folks we often walk by, completely oblivious of. The story is also about the food delivery guy who climbs floors to hand you the meal delivered to you on your doorstep, and we don’t even bother to ask them for a glass of water or house help we threaten to fire for being 15 minutes late to work.

Kapil Sharma, the movie’s lead character, gets into the skin of the character as effortlessly as he puts on the uniform of a Zwigato employee each morning to carry out a seemingly impossible task—delivering 10 orders in a day. He lacks technical know-how, which makes him weaker at the job, and is constantly at the beck and call of ratings and bots. Manas’ line of work exposes him to a section of society that is cut off from the ‘hustle culture’ and understands simply how to survive.

Although Das makes an unusual casting decision by handpicking Sharma for the character, it partially favors the movie. Kapil dons a serious man’s mask after shedding his comic garb, but it doesn’t always work in the flick. Nonetheless, there are glimmers of sincerity in his act.

Shahana Goswami, on the other hand, portrays his wife, Pratima, with ease. She is a dignified woman who looks after her children and her ailing mother-in-law. She is the heart and spirit of the movie, which falters occasionally. She is flawless as the sheepish woman Pratima, who is looking for any chance to keep her family financially afloat.

In the meantime, Sayani Gupta, who makes a cameo appearance, gives a powerful monologue when she tries to argue that in a nation of 2.4 billion people, there are 93,000 applications for the position of a peon, many of which are from PhD holders, and that these delivery partners should consider themselves fortunate for having a job of comfort. In truth, however, the freedom to choose the shift one wants to work is more of a bane than a boon.

Nandita Das, who aims to make every part of her work as realistic as possible, falls short this time when it comes to the vernacular of her main characters. Manas Mahto and his family, who are natives of Jharkhand, do not speak the same dialect as the locals or, more particularly, the community to which the protagonists belong. I can tell you of it as someone who has lived all of their life in the mentioned state. And at least this part of Das’ movie was disappointing, especially since Sharma’s Punjabi accent still every once in a while slips out.

One wouldn’t be altogether wrong when they claim that ‘Zwigato’ is a movie for film festivals. Not because a movie like this is beyond the comprehension of the average viewer, but in order to endure the dull portions of the Kapil Sharma starrer, one must be deeply in love with cinema.