Bhooty Call - Stree

Over the course of my many Octobers, I have learned one thing about ghost stories: the good ones are never just about the ghost.  That's certainly the case with Stree (2018). 

The men of the small town of Chanderi have a problem.  A ghost (and possibly a witch; the lines are blurry in Indian cinema) called Stree (Flora Saini) abducts men she catches out alone at night.  Naturally, the men are terrified. They want to run.  They want to hide.  It's scary when you live where the Stree has no name.

(And the stree literally has no name; near as I can tell, the word just translates to "woman" or "female."  Naturally, this will be important later.)

One man who isn't particularly worried is Vicky (Rajkumar Rao), a brilliant tailor who believes that he's destined for greater things.  he hopes that one of the greater things he's destined for is a mysterious woman (Shraddha Kapoor) who asked him to sew a dress for her.  And the woman seems to like Vicky as well!  She asks to meet up later, and it's only slightly odd that she asks for a few ordinary household items like brandy and a lizard's tail and the hair of a white cat.  Vicky's friends Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) and Janna (Abhishek Banerjee) are a little more suspicious, since the woman doesn't have a phone and never actually enters the temple grounds and nobody but Vicky has ever seen her and even he still doesn't know her name, but every relationship has it's issues, right?

It's no coincidence that both of the female leads are unnamed.  (Actually, looking back, I don't think any women are named onscreen.)   This looks an awful lot like one of the stories men have been telling each other for generations that asks "What would happen if women treated us the way we treat them?"  Within the story, many of the men think that's exactly what's going on, resorting to women's clothing as a way to escape Stree's wrathful gaze, and the (fairly stupid) plan our heroes come up with to deal with Stree and get their friends back certainly plays to those tropes.  But it is explicitly a stupid plan; the real solution, as Vicky eventually realizes, is to treat Stree with respect, as a person.

So, is it scary?  Not really.  There are some intense moments, but the ghost story develops slowly, and the movie is much more interested in its cast of small town goofballs.  But then, it's not really about the ghost.  It's about respect.