Nirmal Joshi’s ‘Goodnight Giggles’ is a superb short film based on a sexually active couple

Spoilers ahead…

He’s an IT professional. She’s a doctor. They’re married, and they have a fantastic, fantasy-prone sex life. Nirmal Joshi’s Goodnight Giggles depicts sex in a way we’ve never seen in an Indian context (though the director is from the US). The act is utterly un-self-conscious — as are the brilliant actors, Chakori Dwivedi and and Sahir Mehta. All the speech about dense pubic hair, “backdoor entry”, making love with the lights on, farting — everything feels so natural, like brushing teeth.  There are some grating bits of dialogue — for instance, where the wife talks about how men just want to reach the destination while women want to enjoy the journey. It feels too studied a line, trying to “make a point” in a film whose only point is to show how sex is the most natural, unfussy thing possible. Otherwise, almost everything else works in this exquisitely shot film. The beautifully written screenplay goes back and forth in time, back and forth between Hindi and English — and it ends with a little drama, just the right amount. I enjoyed it thoroughly, and here’s the film, in case you want to watch it.

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