Choked: Paisa Bolta Hai, released on Netflix, has a very curious premise – a struggling woman who is the sole bread earner of her family works as a cashier in a bank, secretly discovers a source of unlimited cash in her home and then demonetization strikes and plagues her life.

 
Anurag Kashyap makes a realistic middle-class setting, creating characters which are both relevant and relatable. The society (where the main characters reside) is filled with diverse characters that are cunning, emotional and all ears to any gossip. The fun of the film is how Anurag Kashyap lays out demonetization and shows how it affected the working class realistically. Kashyap also portrays the negative impact of greed and how it makes even the sanest of minds, corrupted. The film benefits from the chemistry between actors Saiyami Kher and Roshan Mathew that keeps up the pace, the couple fights over their sleeping child in whispers and immediately wake the child up to prove who is right. It is both endearing and entertaining.

However, the film suffers from a lackluster third act, the comeuppance part, which sees the writing by Nikhit Bhave fizzle out. The film starts becoming repetitive and the endearing aspect gets lost in the last 30 minutes of the film.

Saiyami Kher holds the film together and expresses her vulnerability and emotions with utmost ease and grit. She gets the posture and attitude of a typical working-class woman who is doing things just for the sake of it.  Roshan Mathew brings charm as an out of work husband he does justice to his role. Upendra Limaye as Reddy is good, but Amruta Shubash’s friendly neighbourhood “tai” is a delight to watch. The supporting cast and minor characters all deliver good performances.

The music and background score by Amit Trivedi is apt. Dialogues uplift the film and so does the typical “taanas” between the bickering couple. Cinematography by Sylvester Fonseca is beautiful, the middle-class houses, locales and dirt of it is captured with extreme realism. The screenplay drags in the third act of the film but is still engaging.  Anurag Kashyap blends reality with his bizarre world and gives us a film worth a watch. Some of the set-pieces are so him or his films, but the director is surely evolving his art. The film is a testament to diverse filmography of Anurag Kashyap. Choked Paisa Bolta Hai is a one-time watch.