Single Salma – A Study of Its Structure and Character Arc

Director – Nachiket Samant

Writer – Mudassar Aziz, Amina Khan, Ravi Kumar

Actors – Huma Qureshi, Sunny Singh and Shreyas Talpade

Single Salma is an interesting case of noble intent and high-quality resources (especially a talented cast) struggling to reach the emotional depth of the story it clearly wants to tell. While it attempts to modernize the journey of self-discovery for a small-town woman, the film often gets lost in its own narrative structure, prioritizing external plot triggers over the internal shift of its protagonist.

What worked –

• Cast Performance: Huma Qureshi, Sunny Singh, and Shreyas Talpade provide strong performances that often elevate the material beyond the script’s limitations.
• The Sincerity of Sikandar: Shreyas Talpade’s portrayal of Sikandar is a standout; he manages to make the audience root for his sincerity despite his character having written rather flat. He brings a clear-hearted decency and lively humanity to the screen that feels grounded and real.
• Aesthetic Setting: The film successfully captures the visual “Tehzeeb” of a Lucknowi household, using the clothes, speech, and the Haveli architecture to create a distinct, albeit largely aesthetic, backdrop.
• Identifying the “Need”: The script clearly establishes the protagonist’s fundamental needs—financial freedom for her family and the quest for self-respect—providing a relatable foundation for her journey.

What didn’t –

1. The three acts feel like three different films

If a film story is a journey of transformation, Act 1 is the “Before” and Act 3 is the “After.” They are supposed to be the bookends that frame the internal change that happened in Act 2. By making Act 1 and Act 3 heavy with their own independent subplots and context-building, the middle got suffocated.  And not that these contexts are new to the audience of this part of the world, that elaborate setup is required every time a new subplot is initiated. Example – the long scenes explaining the debt, the haveli history, the brother’s demands, the sister’s demands, and the society’s gossip in the beginning. Can we think of lighter/fewer cues of setting up the character. 

Another plot beat in Act 2 – cultural shock for colleagues – while we have seen it so many times (English Vinglish, Queen), we know it.  If it’s still to be retold, it should either be packaged fresh or newer nuances should be captured. Building up on colleagues’ experiences and reactions with a lack of nuance, only added to the flab.

Similarly, Act 3 is for resolution; introducing new subplots like the Bikini scandal, one has to complete the arc of the plot by ensuring the host of characters respond to this subplot, inevitably and unnecessarily slowing the pace.  All this felt like the movie starting all over again. Act 3, especially in a story like this, should ideally move inwards rather than playing outside the character. All this makes this long film feel longer and slower.

2. The Muslim identity feels merely an aesthetic backdrop.

The clothes, the Tehzeeb in speech, the Haveli – all of this is there, but we miss the specificity. Here the identity felt changeable, without needing to make much changes in the story. The Muslim identity could have been used as a lens to explore unique pressures, domestic architectures, specific forms of rebellion, the “Zenana” (women’s) talk, the specific way matriarchs hold power in those homes, the specific language of the house that exists in a Lucknowi Muslim family, and the unique anxieties regarding the “community’s image.”  There could have been a powerful exploration of her faith vs. her freedom – does she pray in London? How does she reconcile her upbringing with her new environment?

3. Is it a character-driven or a plot-driven story?

It is a plot-driven story in the garb of a character-driven story. Why? It relies on external plot triggers to move Salma: the father’s debt, the training in London, the bikini photo leak, the brother’s/family’s demands, the fiancé’s expectations, and life-changing gyaan inputs by the love interest. If external conflicts stopped happening, the character would have no story to tell. Things are happening to her; she doesn’t happen to plot beats. She’s only responding – this is a major flaw in the character arc.

Instead of exploring Salma’s internal loneliness or her complex relationship with her own identity, the film focuses on these external optics. In the absence of inward exploration, Salma feels like a passive passenger in her own life until the last ten minutes.

Even her growth is measured in external milestones: changing her wardrobe, drinking a cocktail, or standing up to a bully. These feel like shorthand for empowerment, but they don’t necessarily show an internal shift in her soul.

The story does tell us what the character ‘need’ – Financial freedom for her family and self-respect. However, it confuses us more than it tells us about what the character ‘want’ – does she want to be a successful engineer making-over her town, or a model (a brief plot that seemed to be planted only to earn the ending), or earn love, or explore herself, or just left alone?

4. The Chemistry Deficit

Salma’s relationship with Meet suffers from being purely functional. He isn’t a character as much as he is a “Freedom Tour Guide.” Meet is a DJ, urban planner, and motivational speaker – ‘a cool-guy’ cliché. This over-achieving personality makes him feel like a script-level construct rather than a person. Chemistry requires push and pull. In London, Salma simply accepts everything Meet says. He mansplains liberation to her, and she agrees. There is no friction, no intellectual spark, and therefore, no heat.

Similarly, the bond between Salma and Sikandar feels like a friendship based on mutual pity rather than mutual attraction. Because both are “past their prime” in the eyes of society, the film uses their shared desperation as a proxy for chemistry.

Zooming in on Sikander, he makes us root for his character, even when his character got less meat in writing. He comes across as a clear-hearted, decent, and respectful man with a willingness to adjust that Salma never fully acknowledges. Because the film fails to show any real bond between them, her final dismissal – claiming a friendship that was never actually forged – feels like an unceremonious betrayal of a man who stood by her without demand, and more importantly the character who was far more lively and human than the protagonist herself.

5. The Ending

The fatal flaw of Single Salma lies in its refusal to trust the audience’s intelligence, culminating in a heavy-handed climax that misses the mark of true transformation. If we look at Queen, a simple “Thank you” at the end speaks volumes because the film spent every previous minute showing us Rani’s internal shift; the silence feels earned. In contrast, Single Salma resorts to a big, externalized speech because the character’s inward growth could not be felt throughout the story.

Art must not explain. The meaning should emerge.  

For me, this mantra alone would have done wonders for the script.

— SM