Is Netflix’s Choked Any Good? Worth Your Time? A Complete Review

Most Anurag Kashyap films derive their power through a distinct voice. Sometimes it’s literal: dialogue, songs, background score.

Sometimes metaphorical: postmodernist whims, absurd humor, gore. His films are feverish and busy, always up for a trick or two. His latest release is Choked is now streaming on Netflix. The film is definitely an outlier.

1. Quick Review

Choked sags dramatically in spots, and takes a good quarter of the run time to get to the point. It works hard to establish its primary characters. They initially show one side of themselves, but grow more complicated as events transpire. Sushant is a decent man in a layabout’s fur.

Sarita, initially sympathetic for her myriad personal struggles, shows shades of greed and entitlement, the more she fishes money from the trap. They’re both flawed, but never irredeemable.

Choked is set in a housing society in Mumbai that is, quite literally, close-knit. It is made up of uniform, tightly circumscribed flats the same one that has been imposed on middle-class India universally, since Independence, as if fulfilling a communist pledge. Very little of the film works.

What keeps us remotely engaged are the performances by its actors. Saiyami Kher’s Sarita is an empowered, independent, working woman who bristles at life. There is a sensuality to her that Sylvester Fonseca’s camera catches, but, thankfully, Kashyap doesn’t exploit.

2. Is it worth watching?

The film starts to mirror its hassled protagonist’s past. The stage was set, but Choked succumbs to a crippling bout of performance anxiety. Most of the film feels strangely bland and incoherent, lacking the kind of edgy ambition that director Anurag Kashyap is widely known for.

Choked | Official Trailer | Saiyami Kher, Roshan Mathew, Amruta Subhash, Rajshri Deshpande | Netflix

The narrative is dotted with random loan sharks, a bizarre jazz-style background score (last heard in the Bombay Velvet shootout), nosy neighbors, anti-establishment anthems, and uneven editing. One can argue that the scenes are cut to reflect demonetization abruptly interrupting the Indian economy, but is it though?

This is only the second time Kashyap has directed a script not written by him. Choked is written by Nihit Bhave, and the director is apparently at the stage of his career where he’s visibly experimenting with his own voice.

Kashyap’s characters are behaviourally funny, to begin with. Dark humor inherently defines their everyman’s desperation. The conscious attempt to be situationally funny in Choked comes off as awkward, like a satire too shy to make a move.

I. Plot

Sarita (played by Saiyami Kher) is a cashier at a government bank and the only earning member of a family. Her husband, Sushant (played by Roshan Mathew), would rather play carrom with his buddies than be an adult. Sarita was once an aspiring singer who choked in the spotlight of a reality show finale.

While Sarita resents her own existence, a plumbing problem turns into divine intervention. One night, her kitchen sink mysteriously burps up wads of waterproofed cash. Her prayers feel answered. That is, until that fateful evening in 2016, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi announces a radical demonetization policy on live television.

Choked is another attempt by the usually-prolific filmmaker to unpack contemporary socio-political themes through the prism of genre cinema. The film proves to be more of an exercise in dissent than a work of art. The performances can’t be faulted, especially Amruta Subhash as the theatrical Maharashtrian landlady.

But the focus is squarely on taking a stand instead of making a film whose characters convey the sharpness of a stand. Much of Choked is overcome by the urge to critique the daftness of demonetization. In the process, the filmmaking itself takes a backseat.

This is best epitomized by a stylized bank robbery sequence that triggers a climax so restrained that the film almost forgets to end. Not to mention the marital discord between Sushant and Sarita, which becomes its own eccentric beast once Choked stumbles towards a resolution.

II. Music & Visuals

The music director is Karsh Kale, an American musician, producer and composer par excellence and of Indian heritage. Choked has an over-the-top soundtrack and an unnecessarily expressive background score. Its soundtrack includes songs like Paisa Bolta Hai as well as Sunn Sur Jo. It also has a qawwali out of nowhere that leaves you wondering why it was added in the first place.

The lead-up to demonetization is set-up well. But it’s once demonetization is announced, that things get chaotic on-screen, as they did in real life too. Micro-chip in currency notes, Jio, Paytm, Achche Din—Choked hits at all the obvious targets.

The critique of demonetization feels shoved into the plot rather than the target of a thoughtful, well-embedded, and sharp critique. In taking on demonetization, the film becomes as disconnected and ineffective towards the end as demonetization itself has been.

3. Final Thoughts

It is only halfway through the film that the subplot of demonetization is introduced. This could have elevated the movie, but Kashyap takes refuge in superficial political commentary.

There are perfunctory news clips and attempts at humor. Sushant considers it a masterstroke, while Sarita’s friend (played by Amruta Subhash) is so distressed that she can’t stop laughing.

For a thriller, Choked’s plot plods. Its dialogues are pedestrian. The characters’ desires lack the sting that makes them magnetic. We do get glimpses of their failed past lives — Sushant wanted to be a musician, Sarita, a singer — but they don’t inform their present in urgent, purposeful ways. It is all a bit too vague and cursory to be more than a one-time regret.

4. Grade

5. Info