the threshold

a film by pushan kripalani

Official website of the 2015 film directed by Pushan Kripalani, starring Neena Gupta and Rajit Kapur, and produced by Blackboxers Productions.

The Threshold
Runtime: 87 minutes
Language: Hindi & English (with subtitles)
Year and Country of Production: 2015, India


The Threshold details one day in the life of a couple who have been married over two decades.

On this day, the day after their newly married son, and the guests from his wedding party, have left, the wife informs her husband that she is leaving him. For good.

Presented with this fait accompli, two people on the verge of an idyllic retirement are forced to confront the truth of their marriage, without the masks.

Even as the couple tries to get to the heart of the matter, they find the big questions of their lives beyond their grasp. They are two people, isolated in a house in the hills, preparing for the harsh Himalayan winter, trying to find themselves one last time.

This film was an opportunity to explore a corner of our world that never makes it onto screen. The people we don’t normally notice. The people who are always at the edges of the family photograph. Except we know these people. They are our aunts and uncles. They are our parents. They are our grandparents. We will become them.

It was an opportunity to examine an existential crisis: The unraveling of the idea of the ideal Indian marriage all of us are familiar with.