Despatch: The manly problem

A grim, suffocating look at what the Internet nebulously calls “toxic male” and how the murky ethics of old-world crime journalism could make such a man a hero

New Delhi: The end of journalism is now a fashionable lament. The semantics of this lament gets turgid and relentlessly grim expression in Kanu Behl’s new film Despatch, written by him and Ishani Banerjee.

Kanu Behl’s new film Despatch is streaming on Zee 5 (HT Photo)

The woman writer is important in this film. The journalistic ordeal that the film hinges around, obviously inspired by the real-life case of the shooting of MidDay journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in Mumbai in broad daylight a few years ago, has less clarity and heart in the story than the man at the heart of the drama: Joy Bag performed with intuitive intensity by one of India’s greatest, Manoj Bajpayee. Joy inhabits a self-loathing, mysogynistic cauldron — a deeply flawed man, the kind which the Internet has been nebulously branding “toxic masculinity” for some time now. Cinematographer Siddharth Diwan conjures a Mumbai that mirrors that cauldron with overpopulated, dimly-lit oppressive frames.

Journalism continues to inspire filmmakers in the most binary of ways — either caricatures that have no resonance with real-life journalists or morally limpid heroes who care about the larger good more than themselves. Despatch does neither. The screenplay is tilted more towards the impulses that drive Joy — the bed as a transactional, venting space where the heteronormative man, enmeshed with family values, emotionally clogged-up, acutely fearful of criticism, failure and women with voices and minds of their own, finds ways to ventilate his internal agitations through aggressive, frumpy sex with women in the missionary position.

Joy doesn’t have much perseverance or reporting ethics. He certainly has no guile — always two steps behind his targets. And yet, the exposé of exposés lands on him. The mechanics of the scam he unearths is the laziest part of the screenplay. Neither the characters nor the audience know what exactly this scam is but we know that it has some connection to a 2G scam and the IPL. The involvement of a powerful being or entity that the film refers to as “Stonedome” makes it the bespectacled Bengali editor’s nightmare.

Not downright journalism burlesque like in many other films, but Despatch too is blinkered in its amorality about the profession. But thank you for the gorgeous visual sequence that captures the contours of the majestic printing machine. Thank you too for the Indian Express mention in one of the dialogues — “if nobody, the Express will publish the exposé”. Journalists of the classic reporting mould are out of jobs, finding new professions. Joy Bag’s reckless ways make the profession seem easier and more casual than it is. The film is overeager to say that journalists are often just lucky — and that’s not far from the truth.

Behl’s earlier films, the brilliantly volatile debut Titli (2015), Agra (2023) and his short film Binnu ka Sapna (2018), have explored the loads and lugs of masculinity vis-a-vis relationships with women, parents, siblings without judgement or gratuitousness. In Despatch, Behl’s most accessible film so far, and certainly as unyieldingly sad and flammable like his earlier films and their male characters, he explores the masculinity problem further.

The structure is such, that both the character and the shadowy truths that Joy is uncovering, unravel towards the last half hour. The three women in the film — the wife Shweta (Shahana Goswami in a blink-and-miss role, weeping or fuming or looking helpless), colleague and girlfriend Prerna (Arrchita Agarwal in a debut role, forever ready to please with a smile) and colleague Noori (Rituparna Sen, in a role that combines fortitude, cunning, but most obviously, ready at all times to help Joy with reporting leads and sex) — are sorry figures. The screenplay almost suggests, there is something to these women, but let’s just keep that minimal because our man needs them to be only what we show them to be. The point of view and delineations are emphatically only keeping Joy in mind. No joy for a woman to watch.

Behl is deeply invested in the insecurities and angst of Joy as a man. He can’t communicate with women unless they have something to be of service. The sex is political; Joy literally doesn’t enjoy his wife on top. Emotionally damaged, flawed men are everywhere around us. He can be a hero too, the screenplay insists, and it is a highly acceptable idea. It is a pity the gender binaries play out like a gnawing gash in Despatch. While Joy thrives on the aggression in bed, the camera, in some of the intimate scenes, seem to hate the women even more. His ego is a spectacle. None of the women in the film are characters, just as a film that poses as “feminist” can be annoyingly cardboard about its male characters.

Just before Joy meets his Greek tragic hero end on a Mumbai road, exactly how J Dey died, he visits his brother and mother. He knows it possibly could be his last visit, and he hands over his bank documents to them. It is a scene of explosive grief, but given the man Joy is, it is banal. A flicker of an emotion, an awkward hug with his brother, and he is on his way. The mother, distressed, looks on, and Joy doesn’t acknowledge her. A chill went down my spine. This is a man to avoid — and to pity.

Despatch is streaming on Zee 5.