Institute of Management

Nirma University

Applied Literature
UEIT001
Group Assignment 1
Critical analysis of the film Margarita with a Straw

Submitted to:
Prof. Pronoy Singha

Submitted by:
Sejoti Banik (167151)
Mahek Charania (167230)
Date: April 15, 2019
Introduction
Written and directed by Shonali Bose, Margarita with a Straw is a movie that
revolves around Laila, a teenager suffering from Cerebral Palsy. The film
gracefully depicts Laila’s journey in life from moving to New York for higher
studies to facing difficulties in day to day work and discovering her sexuality. The
film has subtly broken certain stereotypes attached with a patient of Cerebral
Palsy along with showing the characters as normal people rather than
patronising them. In the critical analysis, we have tried to cover the main themes
of the film including feminism, identity and to a small extent, racism.

Critical Analysis
The film opens with a scene of Laila’s mother dropping Laila’s father and her two
children off to their respective place of work and study. This scene is very
powerful for a first scene showing the importance of feminism right at the
beginning of the film. The mother drops everyone off instead of the male-
dominated stereotype which always shows the father dropping everyone off,
the role reversal is evident of the strong theme of feminism that recurs in the
movie.
Feminism is also seen in the film when the important and not-so-important
decisions such as allowing Laila to go abroad to study to buying cricket tickets
are taken by her mother and not her father. Instances such as the caretaker
advising Laila to keep the hostel room when she was moving in with Khanum
also subtly hint at feminism because the factor of independence is emphasized
more there. Other examples include Laila’s mother complaining about the
educated Indian men always treating women as ‘bai’ or maid and Khanum’s
mother telling Khanum that she is lucky to not have to deal with men when she
came out as a lesbian.
Other subtle references to feminism have also been made in the film such as
showing Laila and Khanum dance together on the song “You need a man” which
is playing in the background, hinting at the irony of the lyrics. Also, a reference
was made to the Egyptian queens in a scene where Laila and Khanum are shown
walking around at the mall and as they pass, the camera moves to the statue of
two Egyptian women sitting together.
The film also has a rather strong theme of Indianism that is particularly shown
when Laila moves to New York to study a creative writing course on scholarship.
The first scene with the caretaker when she refuses to “do bottoms” refers to
the Indian habit of washing the bottoms after doing their deed. Later, Laila’s
friend Jared expresses his wish to visit Varanasi because of his step-father’s guru
also depicts Indianism. A reference to the ruthless police is also made by Laila
when she says “They are more dangerous than the Delhi Police” after the Black
Lives Matter protest.
The film portrays Indianism in its true form without censoring the bad things.
Khanum comments that it is surprising for her to see Laila going to the protest
because “Indians don’t usually come out for protests” that may be hinting at the
racist nature of Indians or their carelessness towards the welfare of other people
in general.
Other scenes that show Indian habits include the mother re-combing Laila’s hair
after the caretaker tied them into a bun because of the distrust, the mother
calling Khanum home for dinner and also inviting her to India along with Laila,
Laila’s conventional thinking regarding kissing only the people you love, Laila’s
mother blaming the caretaker for stealing Laila’s gold-chain that was her
mother’s, mother making food and labelling it for Laila before returning back to
India, the pun on the word ‘Bi’ in which the mother complains about the men
wanting women to do their work instead of acknowledging Laila’s sexuality, little
knowledge about sexuality of people in general which is evident when Laila has
to explain it to her mother that she is bisexual, and her mother later claiming
that she has a disease and it is not normal. All of these scenes convey the Indian
culture in a very correct light without making it seem cruel or bad, Bose has
shown the reality without making a big deal out of it.
Apart from the above-mentioned themes, the main theme of the film is identity.
The film has beautifully portrayed the discovery that Laila makes in respect to
her own identity. The character of Laila is a round character, she keeps learning
as the movie proceeds. At first, we can see Laila being ashamed of her identity,
it is clearly evident in the beginning when the college peons carry her upstairs
because the lift was not working. The feeling is also seen when the band for
which she makes music wins a competition and the judges disclose her disability
to be the reason of their win, listening to this, Laila gets angry and moves away,
again signifying the fact that she wants to be normal and not just be labelled as
disabled. Another scene that we see which depicts Laila’s shame is when she
crops her wheelchair out of the picture before uploading it on a social media
platform. She wants to be normal, in fact, her boyfriend Dhruv knows it and tells
her that she will not become normal by hanging out with normal people. The
same happens later in the film when Laila confesses her infidelity to Khanum by
saying that she cheated because Jared could see her and still wanted her
meaning that she wasn’t sure of Khanum liking her if she wasn’t blind. The
character of Laila has been shown constantly striving to fit in with others to be
normal instead of just accepting herself as she is.
Another thing we see in the film is Laila discovering her sexuality. At first, she is
shown to have a crush on Nima, the lead singer of a band for which she
composes music. Then she is shown to have a crush on Jared and at the same
time, she is also attracted to Khanum. She wants to have certainty about her
sexuality but she isn’t sure about anything and also expresses to Khanum that
everything is scary for her. She learns more about her identity after listening to
Khanum’s coming out story and reading the book A Woman Like That by Joan
Larkin which is also about coming out of the closet as not heterosexual.
Apart from sexuality, Laila also discovers her sexual desires. The film shows her
masturbating to pornographic work and in one of the scenes, she is even shown
to visit a shop with her friend to purchase a sex toy. Later, she is shown to be
hesitant when Khanum touches her sensually but slowly gets comfortable with
it. She also has a sexual encounter with Jared while she is still dating Khanum
which shows the confusion in her mind about her sexuality and her need to be
accepted into the society as a ‘normal’ person.
The third aspect of identity shown is independence. As a patient of Cerebral
Palsy, Laila is severely dependent on her mother for everything she does but she
is shown to explore independence after moving to New York where she first goes
alone on a bus, goes to buy her own groceries, cooks her own meals and cleans
up after it herself. Laila seems to enjoy independence. The last scene which
shows her going on a date with her own self signifies her independence and
confidence in herself when she finally stops wanting to be normal and starts
wanting to know her own self better and enjoy her independence.
Finally, a little aspect of racism has also been shown in the movie. Laila meets
Khanum at a protest of Black Lives Matter which occurs due to the cops killing a
sixteen-year-old boy just because he was black. Khanum disapproved of it and
was involved in the protest while Laila just joined because she wanted to
experience it. The movie does not show more of racism but surely managed to
cover it a little.
Conclusion
The film Margarita with a straw is a beautiful work of art by Shonali Bose. Her
motive of portraying disabled people just as vulnerable and normal as non-
disabled people can be seen as clear and strong in the movie. Although she did
make a few mistakes such as showing Laila cheating because of her bisexuality
which is not correct and only reiterates the stereotypes instead of breaking
them, it still is a commendable film which manages to create awareness about
disability and its difficulties.