''15 Park Avenue'' is a 2005 English-language Indian film directed by Aparna Sen. It stars Shabana Azmi, Konkona Sen Sharma,

Soumitra Chatterjee Soumitra Chatterjee (also spelt as Chattopadhyay; 16 June 193515 November 2020) was an Indian film actor, play-director, playwright, writer, thespian and poet. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors in the history of ...

, Waheeda Rehman, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Rahul Bose and

Kanwaljeet Singh Kanwaljit Singh is an Indian actor who has performed in films as well as television serials. He has acted in Hindi and Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pak ...

.It won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in English.

Plot

30-something Mitali aka Meethi ( Konkona Sen Sharma) has schizophrenia and is taken care of by her older, divorced sister Anjali aka Anu ( Shabana Azmi), who is a professor, and their ageing mother ( Waheeda Rehman). Although she was never married in real life, Meethi has created her own alternate reality in her mind in which she married her ex-fiancé Joydeep ( Rahul Bose) and has five children. While Anu has dedicated her life to taking care of Meethi and her mother, even putting her own relationship with a fellow professor (

) on hold, in Meethi's imaginary world both the older women are holding her in the house and away from her husband and children against her will. She imagines her family to be living at the non-existent 15 Park Avenue in Kolkata. After Meethi has a severe seizure, her case is taken up by a new doctor Kunal Barua ( Dhritiman Chatterjee). While discussing her sister's case with the new doctor, Anu reveals that though Meethi had dormant schizophrenic traits since childhood, she led a very normal life until her early 20s, before a traumatic experience in the course of her job as a journalist made her withdraw from the outer world. Her fiancé, unable to deal with the emotional upheaval caused by the incidence, broke off the engagement. On the doctor's advice, Anu takes both women on a vacation to Bhutan, where they are spotted by Joydeep, now married with two children. In her present state, Meethi does not recognize Joydeep as the same man she is married to in her imagination, and befriends him. When Joydeep learns of Meethi's worsened condition and her imaginary world, he offers to help her locate the elusive family home - 15 Park Avenue. Back in Kolkata, Joydeep drives her down to the part of the city where she believes her house and her family are. In a surrealistic climax, Meethi finally locates the house and finds her husband Jojo (as she fondly calls him) and her five children waiting for her return. She walks into the house, reunited with her 'real' family and is never seen again.

Cast

* Shabana Azmi as Anjali * Konkona Sen Sharma as Meethi *

as Meethi's father * Waheeda Rehman as Meethi's and Anjali's mother * Rahul Bose as Joydeep Roy *

Dhritiman Chaterji Dhritiman Chatterjee is an Indian actor. He began his acting career in 1970 as the protagonist of Satyajit Ray's ''Pratidwandi'' (''The Adversary''). Most of his acting work has been in India's "parallel", or independent, cinema with filmmaker ...

as Dr. Kunal Barua * Kanwaljit Singh as Anjali's colleague and boyfriend *

Shefali Shah Shefali Shah (born Shefali Shetty on 22 May 1973) is an Indian actress of film, television and theatre. Respected for her acting prowess, she works primarily in independent Hindi films and has received local and foreign accolades for her perf ...

as Lakshmi, Joydeep's wife *Suranjana Dasgupta as Madwoman on the street *Dipavali Mehta as Child Meethi *Sunil Mukherjee as Witchdoctor

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:15 Park Avenue 2005 films 2005 drama films Indian drama films English-language Indian films Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia Films set in Kolkata Best English Feature Film National Film Award winners Films directed by Aparna Sen 2000s English-language films