Welcome Home (2020 film)

Welcome Home is a 2020 Indian Hindi-language crime drama thriller film inspired by a real-life incident in Nagpur, Maharashtra. It stars Kashmira Irani, Swarda Thigale, Boloram Das, Shashi Bhushan, and Tina Bhatia. The film was written by Ankita Narang and directed by Pushkar Mahabal. The music was composed by Meghdeep Bose, with cinematography by Saee Bhope, and editing by Pushkar Mahabal. Produced by veteran actor Paresh Rawal and his wife and actor Swaroop Rawal, Welcome Home premiered on SonyLIV in 2020. As of May 2024, the film is no longer available on SonyLIV for unknown reasons.

Plot
The plot revolves around two young women, Anuja (Kashmira Irani) and Neha (Swarda Thigale), who are high school teachers and have been tasked to collect population data for the census. On their way to collect data, they come across a deserted house where a pregnant woman named Prerna (Tina Bhatia) welcomes them. When asked about the people who reside there, Prerna answers that there are four people in the house; Prerna, her grandmother, an old guy, and Bhola(the cook). The two women ask her if it was her first child and Prerna replies no, saying that after being born all the kids cry for some time and then die. Although skeptical, the two women leave. And then for some reason, they decide to go back; but this time there is heavy rain, so they take shelter in her house for the night. At night, one of the women sees the old guy going to a small hut kind of thing from the window. In the meantime, Bhola hears them talking on the phone about how no one knows where they are. Bhola is seen then asking the old guy whom he calls "bhayya" (although the relation is not specified). The two women try to escape the night. They check the hut and see a bloodied man chained. They realize they don't have their phones and hence, go back to the house. The next day they leave but before they can get out, the "grandmother" is seen asking the old guy if he's letting them go, to which he nods his head after which she informs him that they went out the previous night. The women are taken hostage by the old man. They get assaulted, struggle to survive, and eventually split up. It is revealed that the old guy is Prerna's dad, and Prerna has been manipulated and abused by them. She has been manipulated into being obedient and getting sexually assaulted by her dad, and all the kids have been a result of it. The old guy then kills the newborns (and somehow the grandmother is alright with this).

The film shows how those women struggle to escape from the house, during which one of the women's brother comes searching for her and gets his head bashed in. The bloodied guy -who had gone to their house after hearing a baby's cry - in the hut also gets killed. One of the women manages to escape and kills Bhola and the other one gets help from Prerna. The two women manage to escape with heavy injuries but they go back and kill the old man and the grandmother. The film ends and a message is shown on the screen. In the 20 years that they have lived in the house, Prerna has eight kids, and seven of them were killed by the old man and one of them is still unborn. The old man and Bhola have killed more than 13 people, and Bhola has assaulted nine of them. Their first victim was Savitri, Prerna's mother.

Cast

 * Shashi Bhushan as Prerna's Dad
 * Kashmira Irani as Anuja
 * Swarda Thigale as Neha
 * Tina Bhatia as Prerna
 * Boloram Das as Bhola

Critical response
The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, with praise for the performances and writing. Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in wrote "In the SonyLIV film Welcome Home, Boloram Das is far more effective and terrifying as a man who promises to perform horrible deeds and goes right ahead. Welcome Home has other strong performances too, especially by its female leads, who movingly bring out the film’s themes of imprisonment and liberation."

Avinash Ramachandran of The Indian Express said "Welcome Home might seem like a gritty chamber drama, but it is also an affecting commentary on patriarchy."

Devasheesh Pandey from News 18 gave the film 2.5 stars out of 5 and wrote "Welcome Home is not just another movie but carries gracefully a narrative that seeks transformation and liberation from victimhood, which as Anuja points out, does not rest upon gender, but can happen with anyone."

Pallabi Dey Purkayastha of The Times of India gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and wrote "Welcome Home’ gives hope: hope that every time a leach elbows a naïve-looking girl, she will fight back. Hope that every time a wife, mother or daughter is assaulted or murdered, the women would fight back and seek justice."

A reviewer for Spotboye praising the writing and performance of the cast, said "The story, written by Ankita Narang is gripping and it is a sincere effort to throw light on the hideous crimes of child abuse and sexual assault in our society. The editing is a bit jumpy towards the end and there are a few loose ends too but if we see the overall picture, that can be ignored, as the film keeps you on the edge and you want to know what's gonna happen next."