Anubhav Sinha’s Assi puts kids in the front row of trauma and trial, refuses to look away | Opinion-entertainment News
Anubhav Sinha’s Assi is an uncomfortable watch — and it is meant to be. The film announces its intentions in its title. The title means 80, a reference to the approximately 80 rapes reported in India every day. The film follows the brutal assault of Parima, a school teacher in Delhi played by Kani Kusruti, and the legal battle that follows, led by Advocate Raavi, played by Taapsee Pannu. Beyond its central premise of a brutal sexual assault and the legal battle that follows, the film does not merely depict violence; it exposes the ecosystem that enables it. But beyond the courtroom drama and its sharp social commentary, the film makes a choice no one expects — the persistent, deliberate, impossible-to-ignore presence of children. In most films dealing with sexual violence and trauma, children are kept at a careful distance — as if their absence can preserve some illusion of innocence. Assi rejects that instinct completely. Here, children are not shielded. They are made to witness. Their presence in spaces like court hearings feels deeply …
