Haseen Dillruba | Not A Movie Review by Movie Insert | MOVIE INSERT

 

 I might not have any idea what I just watched. Either I’ve lost the ability to analyze cinema,or this film is beyond my limited comprehension. Hey yall. My name is Sucharita.This is Film Companion. You’re watching Not A Movie Review and right now I’m not going to bereviewing Haseen Dillruba. At least, I'm going to try. Set for the most part in the town of Jwalapur,which literally translates to Fire City, Haseen Dillruba tells the story of 28 year old Rani, who likes reading soft-core Hindi novels, while her family is ready to marry her offto the first man who will have her. Toh bechari apne sad sexy armaan lekar Rishuse shaadi karke pohonch jaati hai Jwalapur, only to realize they’re a terrible match. And novel fantasy toh door, this man and his familymight not even be good enough to be boring, hers is suddenly and actively unhappy, miserable life. You can tell Rishu has had little tono interaction with women ever, so the idea of owning a hot wife is literallythe best thing that’s ever happened to him. With a sexist, classist, casteist mother whowants gori, homely, vegetarian bahu, only to complain about her all day long, and a best friend with frosted tips, who says things like“Bhabhi ki na training shuru kar do jaldi se”, Rishu is caught between wanting to get ahead of theslipping power dynamic in his new relationship, and realizing he’s not in any wayequipped to be an equal partner, mentally and physically to the woman he’s stupidly married. Enter hot boy cousin, with the hot boy name Neel, and Rani’s hot bhabhi-devar novel romance comes alive. Iss beech mein murder, police, nosy padosi, everyone. Look, I'm all for genre subversion, take the rules,twist them unrecognizable. Take the done to death arranged marriage meet-cute, and lead it to horrifying consequences,sister yes I'm here for it. But for this and other subversions tosuccessfully and effectively occur, the execution needs to be clear and convincing, joh dono cheezein Haseen Dillrubamein unfortunately nahi hain. You don’t know how you feel about Rishuand Rani kind of throughout the film, because their very fundamental basicpersonalities keep altering faster, than Vinil Mathew can establish them. In the first half we’re lead to believe Rani is afearless Delhi girl, who does as she pleases, but hasn’t been able to convince herself,ki marriage really is not the be all and end all of her existence,so she does shaadi. She eventually turns out to be more twistedthan she lets on, which is not my complaint. Similarly, Rishu who seems like a dumb,naïve engineer, does homeopathy as a “hobby”, I mean I possibly couldn't roll my eyes enough at him, but turns out to be a literal narcissisticpsychopath, is also a lovely turn of events. I love me some Phantom Thread,Reynolds Woodcock energy. What I’m perplexed about, is director Vinil Mathewand writer Kanika Dhillon’s lack of conviction, if the audience will understand these characters. Kya logon ko samajh mein aayega hum kyakarne ki aur kehne ki koshish kar rahe hain? Toh after a simplistic an overtly familiar first half, in thesecond half, when the strangeness begins to come true, a song with the words “muskuraane ka bahaana”in there somewhere, an emotional speech about how nice guys alwaysfinish last, which is why they turn murderous, an exposition-y cop and other helpful crutches,to ensure ki koi detail miss nahi hona chahiye. I see the story’s point A to B to C, whichKanika Dhillon’s writing was getting at, its very clear and could have been interesting, I wish the screenplay and dialogue hadtrusted us to connect the dots, on our own. For a murder-mystery, Haseen Dillrubatakes way too many pauses, wanders too much, losing its paceand audience, many-many times. Harshvardhan Rane as hunky Neel comes inand out of the screenplay sporadically, as Taapsee Pannu as Rani and Vikrant Masseyas Rishu endlessly flip-flop back and forth between love and hate, plain and murderous, cinematographer Jaya Krishna Gummadichanging his lighting and styling every time, making the whole thing inconsistentto the point of becoming uninteresting. Haseen Dillruba is weird, but notclever enough to be weird-good. The weak and underwhelming ending pay-offis visible from the literal first sequence, Aditya Srivastava as the police inspector could havefigured it out, if he’d watched enough Bollywood movies. Or read a novel or two So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Haseen Dillrubais 1 giant disappointment. Sorry. But, listen, makeup your own mind,watch the movie on Netflix. And subscribe to Film Companion.