The film showed Uttam's other the best performance and clash with Soumitra. The film became a blockbuster hit at the box office. The films was dominated at the BFJA Award 1973 and goes to win seven awards. It was later remade in Hindi in 1982 as Ayaash starring Sanjeev Kumar, Arun Govil and Rati Agnihotri in lead roles.
Plot
Sitapati (Soumitra Chatterjee), a homeless youth, comes to landlord Madhav Dutta's (Uttam Kumar) house and gets a job as his cameraman. Sitapati discovers his former girlfriend Mrinmoyee (Arati Bhattacharya) is now Madhav Dutta's wife. Madhav's polygamy and Mirnmoyee's loneliness prompt her extramarital relationship with Sitapati. Baiji dance and alcoholism, love, betrayal, hatred - Sitapati's lens captures it all. Finally, Sitapati leaves the house, Mrinmoyee dies, and gradually Madhav learns about their relationship. Madhav cannot bear the fact that his wife has committed adultery. He goes to take revenge and shoots Sitapati who is already dead, then becomes mad and shoots himself.[4]
The Times of India wrote "Stree, one of the finest works of Uttam Kumar, reminds us that icons like him are rare. Uttam Kumar stepped out of his romantic image and tried something just the opposite. A drunkard Bengali zamindar without any sense of chastity – he was unrecognizable in this negative character. Yet he bamboozled everyone with this persona. Even critics admitted only Uttam Kumar can do this. The Uttam-Soumitra movie remains a classic one and Uttam's dialogues still haunt us.[6] The film become blockbuster at the box office and ran for 24 weeks in the theaters.