← Back to Directory
Once Upon a Time in Calcutta
Movie

Once Upon a Time in Calcutta

2025 • Unknown

Woke Score
4
out of 10

Plot

Just when the people of an expanding Calcutta feel their dreams might be fulfilled, they hear the sound of things falling.

Overall Series Review

Once Upon a Time in Calcutta is a contemplative, yet desolate, portrait of Kolkata as a city hollowed out by greed and unregulated growth. The narrative follows Ela, a grieving mother who chooses to leave her family structure in pursuit of financial independence and a new identity after the death of her daughter. Her journey involves navigating systemic corruption, financial schemes, and exploitation, with the city itself acting as a primary antagonist where progress and modernity often lead to collapse. The film presents an ensemble of characters, including a frustrated engineer, a struggling theater owner, and gig-economy workers, all attempting to survive in a transactional and morally subjective environment. The story does not rely on Western identity politics but instead focuses its criticism inward on the decay of local civic and moral life.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics3/10

The narrative focuses on class and economic struggle against local corruption rather than race or immutable characteristics as a source of oppression. Characters are judged by their actions in a cutthroat economic environment. The ensemble cast authentically represents the Bengali-Indian setting without forced diversity or vilification of 'whiteness.'

Oikophobia5/10

The film delivers a strong, internal critique of the city's and the nation's path of 'progress' and modernity. Skepticism is directed at a 'hare-brained embrace of progress' where bridges literally cave in. The narrative laments the 'hollowing out' and moral corruption of the city's foundation, showing despair over how revered ancestral culture, like the work of Rabindranath Tagore, is trivialized and cannibalized for commercialism. This represents a deep disappointment with the current state of one's own civilization's direction.

Feminism7/10

The female protagonist seeks independence and a career as a primary source of fulfillment after the loss of her daughter, abandoning her marriage. Motherhood is associated with grief and a life she is actively escaping. The character encounters obstacles like 'interpersonal misogyny' and 'indecent proposal[s]' on her path, which frames male characters as obstacles or morally compromised figures. The narrative centers on her quest for personal power outside of the traditional family unit.

LGBTQ+1/10

The plot centers on a grieving mother's heterosexual relationships and her struggle for financial agency. The themes do not involve the centering of alternative sexualities, the deconstruction of the nuclear family through a queer theory lens, or the promotion of gender ideology. The standard pairing remains male-female, though it is often broken or transactional.

Anti-Theism6/10

Traditional religion is not a central subject of the film and is neither celebrated nor demonized. The pervasive theme is moral relativism, driven by a 'ceaseless cycle of greed and lies' where 'all papers are fake.' The pursuit of wealth and survival creates a spiritual and ethical vacuum, suggesting a world without objective truth or a higher moral law guiding the citizens.