Margarita with a Straw

Margarita with a Straw

Margarita with a Straw is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Shonali Bose. It stars Kalki Koechlin as an Indian teenager with cerebral palsy who relocates to America for her undergraduate education. She comes of age following her complex relationship with a blind girl, played by Sayani Gupta. The film deals with the challenging concepts of sexuality, inclusion, self-love, and self-acceptance.

About Margarita with a Straw in brief

Summary Margarita with a StrawMargarita with a Straw is a 2014 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Shonali Bose. It stars Kalki Koechlin as an Indian teenager with cerebral palsy who relocates to America for her undergraduate education. She comes of age following her complex relationship with a blind girl, played by Sayani Gupta. The film deals with the challenging concepts of sexuality, inclusion, self-love, and self-acceptance. It premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival and was screened at the Tallinn Black Nights, the BFI London, the Vesoul Festival of Asian Cinema, and the Galway Film Fleadh. It was released theatrically in India on 17 April 2015 to positive reviews. It won the Screen Award for Best Actress and the National Film Award – Special Jury Award, and Bose won the NETPAC Award at Toronto. Commercially, Margarita With a Straw grossed over ₹74 million against a production budget of ⁹65 million. Bose conceived the idea for the film in January 2011, during a conversation with Malini Chib—her cousin and a disability rights activist about the latter’s desire to have a normal sex life. She wrote the first draft of the film’s script, which won a Sundance Mahindra Global Filmmaker Award for the draft, and modified the script to reflect her own perspective, incorporating several personal experiences into the narrative. The soundtrack was composed by Mikey McCleary and the film was completed in the latter half of 2013, with Anne Misawa as the director of photography.

Laila Kapoor is an aspiring writer and also composes music for an indie band at the university. She is heartbroken when she is rejected by the lead singer, but is overjoyed to receive a scholarship for a semester’s study at New York University. Despite her father’s reservations, she moves to Greenwich Village, Manhattan with her orthodox Maharashtrian mother Shubhangini Damle. She meets an attractive young man named Jared, who is assigned to help her in the creative writing class. She also meets a young activist, Khanum, a blindGirl of Pakistani-Bangladeshi descent, with whom she falls in love. Laias becomes confused about her sexual orientation, as she is attracted to men—Jared in particular—while being in a serious relationship with Khanum. She has sex with Jared, only to regret it immediately. She eventually finds the courage to come out to her mother about her sexuality and her relationship with Kahnum, both of which her mother strongly disapproves of. The two eventually reconcile shortly before Shub hangini’s death. Revathi, Kuljeet Singh, and William Moseley play supporting roles in the film, which was produced by Bose in partnership with Viacom18 Motion Pictures. The movie was selected for the National Film Development Corporation of India’s Work-in-Progress Lab initiative during post-production.