Scene 1:

With practically every movie-goer and critic going gaga over Kahaani, the expectations about the film are at fever pitch. I walk into the theatre with my wife, 2 daughters and a nephew for a late night show. It is 11 pm and the show begins at 11.20 pm. We haven’t booked tickets but hey, it’s a late night show, right? Then, the theatre ticket-booth operator politely shows us the full charts and we realize that there is no way we all can sit together. So we split the party into two- the adults (yours truly and the missus!) take up the last two remaining premium seats in the back row and the kids are packed up to take up three front-row seats! The show is about to begin!

Scene 2:
The movie comes to an end. The crowd walks out. Our contingent too makes its way home. The discussions are hot. The words like ‘Wow’ and ‘Awesome’ keep coming from all directions. I cannot make up my mind. I just keep thinking. Was it really that good? Was it?

My Take

It’s Kolkata’s International Airport. A pregnant woman gingerly walks out amongst the milling crowd, only to be immediately surrounded by a cackling pack of porters and cabbies. When she finally gets into a cab, she heads straight to the nearest police-station. Carrying the heavy weight of her pregnancy and her luggage, she walks into the police-station to lodge a complaint about her missing husband!

Right from the first moment, Kahaani grabs your attention and never lets it go. Beginning as an intriguing case of a loving wife, coming all the way from London and pulling out all the stops to search for her husband, who has disappeared without a trace in Kolkata, the story soon develops into a sinister cloak-and-dagger, cat-and-mouse mystery thriller. Till the very end, when a shocking climax leaves us gasping, we are never sure which way the things are moving.

The performances are superb all throughout. As expected, mainly it is a Vidya Balan show. She delivers a powerful performance as Vidya- (Sorry, Bidya!) Bagchi, effortlessly spanning all octaves of emoting, proving once again that she has already entered the haloed ‘All Time Great Actress’ territory. But the surrounding supporting cast is no less impressive. Everybody is so natural in their portrayals, especially Parambrata Chatterjee (as Rana) and Saswata Chatterjee (as Bob Biswas) are excellent.

One more shining star of the film is Kolkata itself. Ghosh gives us a freewheeling tour of the city’s shady by-lanes, crowded metro-stations, quaint tram-journeys, run-down guest-houses and frenetic Durga-pooja processions. The City Of Joy has never been portrayed with so much of engaging detail in Hindi cinema.

Vishal-Shekhar’s music perfectly captures the spirit of the city and the story. Once again, the film-maker and the composer-duo show their Pancham- fascination in no uncertain manner with R.D. Burman tunes wafting all around in the background.

Sujoy Ghosh, the one who first dazzled us with a sparkling debut film Jhankar Beats and then, stumbled badly with atrocious films like Home Delivery and Aladin, has delivered a razor-sharp thriller in Kahaani, which keeps us guessing till the very end. He keeps his story-telling cards close to his chest and delivers his final killer punch from a totally unexpected angle. True to its title, Kahaani’s real strength lies in its unusual tale and in the unusual way it is told.

Like any critic with a skeptical mind, I could have played the spoilsport and pointed out that a certain scenes and characterizations could have been presented in a different manner and the overall unfolding of the mystery could have been better. But then I checked myself as I realized the fact that very few thrillers in Hindi cinema have ever been as deftly presented or as superbly enacted. So I would just say one thing for now. Kahaani deserves a big thumbs-up!