Andhadhun - Movie Review

#Andhadhun
From director Sriram Raghavan, of Ek Hasina Thi (2004) Johnny Gaddar (2007) and Badlapur (2014), comes another engrossing page turner, centred around a single character’s story and how it intertwines with multiple characters along the way, in a crazy, dark, funny, twisted plot that reveals, as much as it unravels, with every passing scene.

This time the central character is a budding gifted pianist, living a blind life, working on his talent towards building a life of music. A chance incident makes him a witness to a murder, that triggers off a series of mis-happenings that push him deeper and deeper into related and totally unrelated mess. What follows is non-stop Newton’s third law of motion, where every action of his has an equal and opposite reaction, every doing leads to an undoing, till you’re left wondering will this poor guy ever get a break. And does he?

This movie is not about the moments and emotions and dialogues and relationships and such artistic endeavours. The art of this movie is squarely and single mindedly about the plot. And how it unfolds before your eyes. Sriram Raghavan knows he has you wrapped around his story telling because there is no space to think, or wonder, or feel. You are part of a journey that is being driven by him, right from the very first scene. And you have no choice but to fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride. It is a refreshing and unique storyline that is told in an engaging and a relentless way. In this we see shades of inspiration from Guy Ritchie films, where even seemingly random events connect to each other and to the main plot in a ridiculously meaningful way, like the animated rabbit being shot by the farmer!

Ayushman Khurana does a great job playing the central is-blind-is-not-is-blind-is-not character. He is effortless and natural in his role, that admittedly isn’t as demanding anyway.

Tabu, as always, puts up a great show of a
complex character of a middle aged housewife caught in a situation that she is clever enough to do what it takes to get out. But, again Tabu is completely under leveraged in what she is capable of. Her character could have been more twisted, more layered.

And Radhika Apte, who is everywhere these days, does a decent job too, though honestly, I’m still waiting to be impressed by her supposed ‘talent’, that seems to be well hidden behind her looks.

But what you love most about the characters, in true Raghavan style, is the 50 shades of grey that each character is. Simi (Tabu), Inspector Manohar, Doctor Swami, Maushi, the auto rickshaw driver.. even Akash (Ayushman). None of them are golden hearted or pure evil, none of them have a larger than life agenda or have questions of conscience or morality or a life lesson to teach. What each of them is, is simply, biologically human, and like every species ever to have lived on this planet, are driven by just one simple, fundamental drive- survival.

But, Andhadun is not Sriram Raghavan’s finest film. At many points we can actually predict a supposed twist and some of the apparent surprises aren’t really that surprising. We wish he had pushed it even more - a little more stinging of the senses like when Varun Dhawan kills and wraps a dead body in plastic in Badlapur, a little more ruthless emotion like when Urmila Matondkar’s extreme hate for Saif makes her leave him to be eaten alive by rats in Ek Hasina Thi, a little more extreme scenes like the blood and kills in Johnny Gaddar. Just a little bit more..

But if we don’t compare him with what he is himself capable of, Sriram Raghavan does once again show he is a master story teller of slightly ‘hatke ’ plots that don’t necessarily follow a linear feel-good narrative, but are there to entertain like no other movie.

In short, go watch yet another totally worth-it film. What a fab year for Hindi cinema!