Toilet - Ek Prem Katha

About the film

Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (transl. Toilet: A Love

Story) or simply Toilet, is a 2017 Indian Hindi-language comedy-drama film directed by Shree Narayan Singh. Co-produced by Akshay Kumar and Neeraj Pandey, the film stars Akshay Kumar and Bhumi Pednekar, with campaigns to improve sanitation conditions in India, with an emphasis on the eradication of open defecation, which is still a problem, especially in rural areas.

Plot

In an Indian village Nandgaon, Uttar Pradesh, a group of women go to a field, away from their village near Nandgaon in the early hours of the day to defecate in the open, behind the cover of bushes. Keshav has to marry a black buffalo because his father Pandit Vimalnath Sharma is a very religious and superstitious priest, and he believes that his son's marriage to a black buffalo will help improve Keshav's fortune.

Keshav meets Jaya, an educated college going girl, falls in love with her and eventually convinces her to marry him. However, Keshav's father is of the view that Keshav's horoscope is such that he can and should only marry a girl who has two thumbs on her left hand. Since Jaya does not fulfill this requirement, Keshav has an artificial thumb made and gives it to Jaya who wears it as a ring on her thumb. Keshav's unsuspecting father agrees to their marriage.

On her first morning in Keshav's house, Jaya reluctantly goes to a field to defecate, but comes back agitated without defecating and complains about it to Keshav. Despite Keshav's repeated attempts to convince Jaya to give up her stubbornness about needing a toilet, Jaya remains steadfast. He makes a couple of temporary adjustments to solve the problem, first taking her to a neighbour's house which has a portable toilet for a bedridden elderly woman, and later in a train that has a seven-minute stop at the village railway station, without actually constructing a toilet in his house, but after a while, one day she gets locked up in the toilet and train departs the station and agitated and frustrated Jaya leaves Keshav and moves back to her parents' house.

Production

The film was written by Siddharth Singh and Garima Wahal, the writers of the 2013 Hindi film Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. It shares some similarities with a true event in which 19-year-old Priyanka Bharti fled her husband's home in 2012 when there was no toilet. In the film, before the end credits, Toilet mentions that it is based on the story of Anita Narre from Madhya Pradesh, who refused to go back to her husband Shivram's home because it had no toilet.

Filmmaker Praveen Vyas sent a legal notice to the makers, claiming that Toilet- Ek Prem Katha plagiarised scenes and dialogues from his documentary Manini, based on the same subject.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called it a good effort to further the message of cleanliness, as per Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. In December 2017, Bill Gates listed Toilet: Ek Prem Katha as one of the six positive things that happened in 2017.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Toilet Ek Prem Katha has an approval rating of 21% based on 14 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave the film 4 stars out of 5, saying, "Director Shree Narayan Singh holds up a mirror to society, showing us how our superstitious villagers, lazy administration and corrupt politicians have actually converted India into the world’s largest shit-pond. Women especially, are treated more insensitively than cattle!" Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave the film a rating of 2 stars out of 5 and said, "It’s fitting that Akshay Kumar has greenlit and played the lead in this film, which is more a primer of How To Break Social Taboos and Make Toilets rather than a powerful social drama".

Bollywood Hungama praised the performances of the lead actors of the film but criticized the long length and inconsistent screenplay, and concluded the review by giving the film a rating of 3 stars out of 5, saying that, "On the whole, Toilet – Ek Prem Katha, despite the minuses, integrates a strong social message with entertainment wonderfully and also questions several age old practises in the society." Rachit Gupta of Filmfare gave the film a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5 and said, "Toilet – Ek Prem Katha is a solid entertainer with a strong social message. It may not have the most polished screenplay, but director Shree Narayan Singh's deft handling of the subject makes the most out of its noble intentions."

Rajeev Masand of News18 gave the film 2.5 out of 5 stars and said, "It’s clear the film has its heart in the right place but the blatant pandering gets tiresome. Akshay Kumar brings just the right amount of levity and Bhumi Pednekar shines. It’s the sloppy writing that is the culprit here. Toilet Ek Prem Katha had potential but it’s only sporadically entertaining." Rohit Vats of Hindustan Times gave it 2.5 stars out of 5, saying, "Ek Prem Katha endorses the Indian government’s Swacch Bharat Abhiyaan so seriously that after a point it starts to look like that Priyanka Bharti ad featuring Vidya Balan".

Box office

The film released on 11 August 2017, before India's independence day. The film grossed ₹311.5 crore (US$45.55 million) worldwide, becoming Akshay Kumar's highest-grossing film, and his first film to enter the 300 crore club.

Key details