The Peddi question: Janhvi Kapoor has the projects, where are the performances?

Janhvi Kapoor has done something that takes most Bollywood actors years to engineer — she has landed two back-to-back films with the two biggest superstars of Telugu cinema. First Jr NTR in Devara. Then Ram Charan in Peddi.

The projects are as big as they get. The co-stars are as powerful as it gets. The platforms are impossible to ignore. And yet, two films in, the question that follows her from one release to the next remains unanswered: when does the performance arrive?

There is a particular kind of frustration reserved for performers who have the opportunity but keep picking roles that reduce them to mere eye candy. And this is a criticism that applies to Janhvi's work in both Devara and Peddi.

Devara: A debut that hardly left a mark

When Janhvi made her Telugu debut in Devara alongside Jr NTR, the goodwill was significant. As the daughter of the late Sridevi — a legend in Telugu cinema with an unparalleled fan base — there was a readymade emotional investment in her success.

Her character, Thangam, strictly had limited scenes and a song. The writing did not help — the role was underwritten from the start. But even within those limitations, there was very little evidence of a performer trying to make something out of the cracks the script left open. Her character was so inconsequential that even if it were removed, it wouldn't have affected the movie. Much to the audience's respite, she also goes missing in the film after a while. A look, a silence, a moment of stillness that might signal interiority - none of it is there.

One film in, the verdict was uncomfortable but forgiving. Perhaps it was the limited screen time. Perhaps Peddi would be different. Only it's not.

Peddi: Reduced to a camera angle

If Devara was just a sample, Peddi took it to another level — normalising objectification, harassment and the lack of consent, with an actor of Ram Charan's stature justifying the most problematic gestures through his dialogues and gestures. Janhvi Kapoor plays Achiyamma, daughter of a local politician, in Peddi. Her first scene features her removing her half saree pallu and using it to set fire to her own crops to gain sympathy for her father's election campaign.

In one of their initial scenes together, Ram Charan's Peddi barges into Achiyamma's home. When the power goes off, he pulls her close and kisses her – having never bothered to look at her face. So, when he wants to identify her after sunrise, he says: "I can identify her just by her figure. Her waist is so slim that it could almost fit in one hand."

In another scene, he and his sidekick trade one problematic line after another. "Is she talking or showing?", "I will touch her once because neither she nor her father will allow me to marry her."

Then Peddi begins complimenting her — describing her eyes while the camera lingers below her neck, never looking up. He describes her nose and the camera pans to her navel. So much for a woman's dignity.

Later, when Achiyamma miraculously falls in love with Peddi — a development the film never bothers to show — she discovers that her midnight mystery kisser was him. She is shaken and asks: "Don't you know it's wrong to kiss a woman without her consent?" For a moment, it seems like the character might get a scene to redeem herself.

But director Buchi Babu Sana makes it worse. He has Peddi justify the kiss by saying that some people offer flowers to express love — he only knows how to express it through touch. Consent be damned! He further compounds it by saying he will marry her. And Achiyamma melts.

Now, Achiyamma is not a character without potential. She headlines her father's local election campaign. In one public meeting, a man from the opposing faction cuts the string off her skirt to shame her publicly. Peddi swoops in to save her and bashes the men responsible. Proper textbook saviour!

But here is the contradiction the film never confronts: if cutting her skirt string is harassment, kissing her without consent is also harassment. The film treats one as a crime and the other as romance — and never pauses to notice the difference.

While the intention behind these poorly conceived scenes is beyond comprehension, the camera work compounds it further. It hardly focusses on Janhvi's face. Her character exists from the neck down — and that appears to be entirely by design. All of that is a discussion for another day (soon), but why is Janhvi increasingly becoming a mascot for objectification of women in films?

Both Ram Charan and Janhvi Kapoor, with the kind of influential stature they enjoy in the industry, are expected to voice their discomfort in scenes that are built entirely around a woman's body rather than her character. What's stopping them from asking the writers to write better, the directors to think better and themselves from choosing better?

Let's look at Janhvi's last two releases: Sunny Sanskaari Ki Tulsi Kumari and Param Sundari. Both films didn't do well at the box office. But the bigger problem was just how frivolously her characters' seemed designed in these stories. Both the films had at least one song focussed solely on establishing Janhvi's glamorous presence.

Which brings us to the bigger question. Is this a Janhvi Kapoor problem, or is it an industry problem that she has stopped resisting?

Because there is enough evidence by now to suggest that Janhvi is not incapable of delivering a performance. Films such as Gunjan Saxena, Mili and even portions of Bawaal showed flashes of sincerity and effort. One may debate the results, but the intent to act was visible. The actor seemed more interested in inhabiting a character than simply decorating a frame.

That is what makes the recent choices so puzzling.

Why does an actor who repeatedly speaks about wanting challenging roles keep ending up in films where her primary contribution is glamour? Why are some of the biggest commercial filmmakers in the country looking at her and seeing only a song, a waist shot and a romantic subplot? More importantly, why does she keep saying yes?

The concern is not that Janhvi Kapoor is appearing in commercial cinema. Some of Indian cinema's finest women have thrived in mainstream entertainers. The difference is that they demanded characters. Sridevi could stop a film in its tracks with a comic scene. Soundarya could hold her own opposite the biggest stars. Even contemporary actors such as Alia Bhatt, Sai Pallavi, Nayanthara and Samantha have insisted, with varying degrees of success, on playing women who exist beyond the hero's gaze.

With Janhvi, the trend appears to be moving in the opposite direction.

Film after film, the industry seems increasingly comfortable reducing her to a visual accessory. A glamorous presence, a marketing asset, a beautiful interruption between plot points. And each time she accepts such a role without publicly challenging its limitations, the stereotype grows stronger.

At some point, the conversation has to move beyond box office numbers and star pairings. Landing a film with Jr NTR is an opportunity. Landing a film with Ram Charan is an opportunity. But opportunities only matter if they lead to performances that people remember.

Years from now, audiences are unlikely to recall how many superstar vehicles Janhvi Kapoor boarded. They will remember the characters she created, the scenes she owned and the moments that revealed an actor worth watching.

That is the question hanging over her career today. Not whether she has access to the biggest films. She clearly does. The question is whether she is willing to demand more from those films, and from herself.

Peddi, meanwhile, is currently running in theatres.