Sibling rivalry takes to the field in Kacchey Limbu when a brother and sister in Mumbai, India, compete against each other in opposing cricket teams.
Kacchey Limbu
Shubham Yogi (director and writer), Piyush Puty (cinematography), Mitesh Soni (editor)
Radhika Madan, Rajat Barmecha, Ayush Mehra (cast)
September 11, 2022 (TIFF)
Aditi Nath (Radhika Madan) idolizes her older brother, Akash (Rajat Barmecha, in his screen debut), and has followed him in his love of cricket. From the opening scene of Kacchey Limbu, it’s apparent that Akash is passionate about the game; cricket is all he wants from life. But at 26, he has no job and his dreams of playing cricket have yet to breach the boundary of gully (alley) cricket.
When Akash gets the opportunity to play in a new league, the Nath family is at a loss. The scion of their family is making no effort to secure his own future. It’s up to Aditi to do something. She makes a deal with Akash. In the upcoming gully cricket tournament, she’s going to sign on to a team. If her team beats Akash’s team, he will have to get a job.
There’s just one hitch. Aditi doesn’t have a team. She’s never played in the tournament. It’s been so long since she played cricket, nobody remembers she was once excellent at the game.
So begins Aditi’s hunt for a ragtag team of players in Kacchey Limbu. She’s accompanied by Kabir (Ayush Mehra), Akash’s erstwhile teammate who wants out of his shadow. The remaining three members are the very definition of a motley crew. If you loved Lagaan, you’ll see a similar theme here when it comes to team selection. There’s even a callback to the film in Kacchey Limbu!
What I found fascinating about Kacchey Limbu is that it isn’t just about Aditi’s cricketing skills and her having to prove herself as an able cricketer. She also has to step up as a captain and mentor for the Kacchey Limbu (newbies) team to have a hope of surviving, let alone winning, the tournament.
I’ve enjoyed a few of the films at TIFF 2022 but I think I’ve found my favourite film of this year. Kacchey Limbu combines a number of elements I adore. It’s about cricket, my favourite sport. It’s about underdogs, and we love those stories. It centres a female protagonist with an unconventional passion, which, hello, who doesn’t love that? And it’s fantastic cinema.
At the post-film Q&A, debutant director Shubham Yogi spoke about the process of making Kacchey Limbu. Production was interrupted by two pandemic lockdowns in India. And the film is actually better for it. The crew had more time to consider the shots of the film and to refine the script. The result is a deliciously polished film that’s got some of the best editing I’ve seen this year.
I’ve found that I quite like sports films. I enjoyed Moneyball, despite my lack of interest in baseball. I’ve loved the Friday Night Lights series for a while, though I still don’t understand the rules of American Football. I even got into The Fighter despite my apathy towards boxing. A film about cricket was always going to be a slam dunk for me (another sports metaphor for you there), and one with a female protagonist even more so.
But what sets Kacchey Limbu apart from the sports films I’ve mentioned is how it captures the tension and awe of an international cricket match in a fictional tournament for gully cricket. The last 30-40 minutes of the film is just the tournament. Cricket match after cricket match. And it was exhilarating! I was ‘oohing’ and ‘oh no’-ing just as I would a real game.
Yogi made no bones about how time-consuming it was to get that pacing just right. It took days to edit the narrative of the film, but months to get the tournament’s editing down pat. That time was well-spent. The resounding applause as the credits rolled was evidence that the rest of the audience agreed. I hope the positive reception for Kacchey Limbu will be a signal to film industries around the world that taking your time can lead to better cinema. And less overworked and underpaid staff (looking at you, Marvel).
I know I’m harping on about the cricket but even if you’re not a cricket fan, Kacchey Limbu will hook you in. Gully cricket is a bit different from international games. But Akash explains the rules in five minutes and the rest you can pick up from context. What’s fun about this film is that if you already love cricket, you’re going to adore the cricket matches. And if you don’t know the game, you’re still going to adore the cricket matches.
While the cricket tournament sequences are thrilling, there’s a strong story and a lot of heart that drives Kacchey Limbu. There are some obvious tropes that the film tries to subvert. The son, Akash, who has all the freedom to achieve his dreams yet must carry the burden of his father’s dashed hopes. The daughter, Aditi, who is expected to conform to her parents’ wishes, whether it’s taking Bharatnatyam classes because her mother wants her to, or enrolling in medical school because that’s what her father wants. Neither child gets to do what they want, so neither really knows what they want from life. It makes them restless and impatient, and they take out their rage on each other, because they can’t stand up to their parents. A lot of Indian viewers are going to see themselves in Aditi and Akash.
There are some tropes that Kacchey Limbu avoids entirely, which I was relieved by. There’s no talk of Aditi getting married—it’s medical school for her—and though there’s a single query about her having a boyfriend, there are more pressing issues for the Nath family to focus on. In fact, there’s very little romance at all in Kacchey Limbu, which is a pleasant surprise. The lack of romance gives the film so much time to focus on the main event—cricket.
The cast do an excellent job to make the stakes of the film relevant to the audience. Madan and Barmecha capture the push-and-pull of sibling love and rivalry, while Madan and Mehra’s chemistry eases us into their eventual roles as teammates. All three actors spent hours training and playing matches against each other in the run-up to this film, and the effort comes through in the climactic scenes in Kacchey Limbu.
I would say my only complaint about the film has to do with body diversity, or the lack thereof. I really do miss the days when Indian films had a cast of characters with wildly different body sizes. Now it’s all abs. This is one Hollywood trend that I wish hadn’t caught on in India.
Looking past that, Kacchey Limbu was a delight to watch. The screening I went to was packed; the audience was deeply engaged in the story and the cricket matches, and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. I’ve made an effort to watch films about cricket before, but none have really captured the highs and lows of a live match. Until now. Driven by a simple but relevant plotline and powered by fantastic editing, Kacchey Limbu is a must-watch for anyone who loves sports films and great cinema.
