Lockdown Review — Brave premise. Timid execution.
Lockdown Review: anupama parameswaran Shines, But the Film Locks Itself Inside Moral Messaging
A Premise Ripped From a Fractured Year
Set in the uneasy months just before COVID-19 turned the world upside down, Lockdown attempts to capture a moment when uncertainty, fear, and restricted freedoms shaped every personal decision. The film follows Anitha, played by Anupama Parameswaran, a young woman from a conservative middle-class household, whose life is quietly constricted long before the pandemic arrives. Her parents’ rigid rules, her job struggles, and her limited autonomy form the emotional baseline of a story that wants to speak about choice, control, and consequence.
Story: A Survivor’s Crisis Trapped in a Moral Frame
The narrative begins predictably, with familiar beats — a sheltered heroine, a job hunt, a party, and a moment of recklessness. But the film takes a darker turn when Anitha discovers she is three months pregnant, with no memory of consent due to being intoxicated. As lockdown restrictions clamp down and fear escalates, she finds herself isolated, unable to confide in her parents, and denied medical options by doctors who refuse to terminate her pregnancy and even threaten police action.
This should have been the film’s emotional and ethical core. Instead, Lockdown increasingly loses focus, shifting its attention away from a survivor’s right to choose and toward a broader — and muddled — emphasis on parental values and moral reconciliation.
Performances: Anupama Carries the Weight
anupama parameswaran delivers an earnest and restrained performance, grounding Anitha in vulnerability rather than melodrama. Her fear, confusion, and desperation feel lived-in, especially in moments of quiet panic when words fail her. She makes Anitha sympathetic without infantilising her, which is no small achievement given the script’s wavering priorities.
The supporting cast, particularly Anitha’s friend Swapna, offers brief but meaningful support. Their bond is refreshingly free of preachy dialogue, relying instead on action and presence. Unfortunately, swapna remains underwritten, existing more as a narrative function than a fully realised character.
Direction & Writing: When the Film Argues With Itself
The most glaring issue with Lockdown is its lack of narrative clarity. The film wants to explore bodily autonomy but hesitates to commit. It presents Anitha as a woman failed by systems — family, medicine, law — yet concludes with messaging that places parental love and approval above personal agency.
The contradiction becomes impossible to ignore when, after chronicling Anitha’s exhausting attempts to access abortion, the film closes with a message celebrating the greatness of parental love. The message itself isn’t inherently wrong, but its placement feels tonally dishonest — almost dismissive of the struggle it spent two hours detailing.
Themes & Analysis: The Conversation It Avoids
Lockdown had the space to interrogate uncomfortable truths: the stigma around abortion in india, the moral policing of women’s bodies, and the opaque underbelly of medical gatekeeping. It briefly touches these ideas — especially in the second half — but retreats before they can land with impact.
The most progressive choice the film makes is also its quietest: Anitha never seeks to identify or punish the man responsible for her pregnancy. Her focus remains on survival and self-determination, not revenge. This subtlety, however, is drowned out by louder, less coherent moral signalling.
Technicalities: Competent but Unadventurous
Technically, Lockdown is serviceable. The cinematography captures the claustrophobia of lockdown life effectively, while the background score remains unobtrusive. Editing, however, feels uneven, particularly in the first half, which lingers on unnecessary song-and-dance beats instead of building psychological tension.
The film often chooses visual comfort over narrative urgency, undermining the severity of Anitha’s predicament.
What Works
• Anupama Parameswaran’s sincere, emotionally grounded performance
• A rare focus on a survivor’s next steps rather than the perpetrator
• The understated friendship between Anitha and Swapna
• Moments that hint at deeper social critique
What Doesn’t
• Confused moral positioning that undercuts its own theme
• Weak character development for supporting roles
• Doctors’ refusal to abort feels unexplained and implausible
• Messaging overwhelms storytelling
Final Verdict: A Missed Opportunity Wrapped in Good Intentions
Lockdown is a film with its heart in the right place, but its voice in conflict with itself. It wants to champion a woman’s right over her body, yet retreats into moral comfort zones that dilute its impact. Even with a committed lead performance, the film never fully commits to the conversation it begins.
This isn’t a bad film — it’s an unfinished one.