Mumbai, India – Writer-director Ashutosh Parandkar takes a fairly familiar modern-marriage problem—balancing parental responsibility with career ambition—and gives it an interesting emotional angle in Adkitta. The Marathi word for a betel nut cracker becomes a metaphor for the characters’ emotional conundrum and circumstance. The story begins when Kasturi (Sakhi Gokhale) breaks the news of her pregnancy to her partner Gautam (Siddharth Chandekar), and the career-oriented couple, though fearful of the complications, decides to have the baby. What follows is a story about a couple in a metro city trying to be good parents and professionals, only to find that balance tough.
Help arrives in the form of Mangal (Sai Tamhankar), a nanny who takes on childcare and becomes part of the household. From there, the equation changes. Kasturi begins to feel insecure as she watches her child grow increasingly attached to Mangal, and what started as a practical solution soon becomes an emotional complication. This could have been a recipe for cheesy melodrama, but the simmering emotions between the characters are built so organically that the film almost plays out like a low-key thriller. Adkitta doesn’t manufacture villains or resort to melodramatic showdowns. Mangal isn’t a villain, Kasturi isn’t a bad mother, and Gautam isn’t an indifferent husband—the film refuses to tell you whom to blame.
Sai Tamhankar, as usual, is terrific. Her Mangal could easily have become a convenient plot device, but Sai gives her a lived-in quality, bringing experience without showing off. She is never afraid to give her co-stars the spotlight when the scene demands it. Sakhi Gokhale, however, is the real surprise, giving her most mature performance yet. She gets a character with considerably more emotional meat than Sai and makes full use of it. One of the film’s standout moments comes when Kasturi opens up to Gautam about her insecurities—it is not played to manufacture tears, but as a genuine attempt to articulate an irrational fear. Siddharth Chandekar holds the middle ground as an understanding husband.
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Adkitta does leave a few interesting threads underexplored, including the couple’s fallout with their parents and Mangal’s subplot involving her abusive husband, which feels like it belongs to a different chapter. There is also a done-to-death friend character who serves little purpose. Still, the emotions run high, and Parandkar keeps the storytelling grounded, making it easy to stay invested. Adkitta doesn’t have all the answers by the end, and that’s okay. It understands that relationships can be messy, and the film is at its best when it simply lets that mess speak for itself.
