Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba Movie Review — Sucharita Tyagi
It’s BEEN a week.
Vinesh Phogat ki silver padak ki victory, Hockey mein Bronze, Kamala Harris ke naye vice president ka chayan, Bangladesh se Sheikh Haseena ka nishkasan, UK mein racists ki rioting, Taylor Swift ke concert mein terror threats, and continued devastating visuals incoming from Gaza, I am exhausted, if you are also, go easy on yourself. Kyunki iss sab headlines mein any personal life issues you may be dealing with, woh toh count hi nahi huye hain.
It’s BEEN a week.
Raise your hand if until this moment amidst all of this, you’d COMPLETELY forgotten there was a sequel to Haseen Dilruba releasing on Netflix?
A direct sequel to Haseen Dilruba, this new one starts off soon after the events of the first one. If you’ve forgotten the important plot points, not to worry a quick montage is in place to remind you who kills and who is at the receiving end of said killing.
In Agra, now Rani lives as a widow in a rented room, works as a beautician, and meets with her alive “dead” husband secretly, the plan is to get out of town as soon as possible. Right on cue, a police inspector shows up with a personal, to stop them from carrying out this plan, played by professional cameo insert / eternal cutie Jimmy Shergil.
Also in the mix is a new guy, compounder Abhimanyu who also wants to get with Rani, further complicating her life.
Film pehle shot se wants to commit to the very specific styling that gave the first one the most flavor. As you see Rani in a sexy cotton saree, drenched in rain in the middle of the night running into a police station, asking them to save her from a murderous husband. The cheap railway station novel palette is visible and exciting. Writer Kanika Dhillon has a knack for finding which shades of human emotion look best on Taapse Pannu at all times, regardless of who is directing her, this writer-actor pair operates like a well-oiled machine.
However, the overall story and screenplay, not so much. Sensational pulp is a delicate art form, not as broad strokes as it may seem, especially when it has to be contained in the duration of a feature film, without the luxury of 100s of pages of a novel or the never-ending airtime allotted to cable TV soaps. The compression here leads to the structure sort of collapsing under its own weight, its debris turning into sludge under the torrential rain from the opening scene.
Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey bring the masala — two twisted freaks who are straight up unstable. Add to the mix Sunny Kaushal smiling the creepiest smile ive seen in a minute, it’s a recipe for a sexy thriller. The movie though, never quite blooms into it. Aditya Srivastava and Jimmy Shergill’s characters don’t actually DO much police work, the case sort of proceeds on its own steam, mostly propelled by the criminals doing more crimes. Because the cops are barely ever hot on their chase, the danger of them getting caught red-handed is lost. The “shame” and playing with the limits of shame, ki what does it mean to live raunchily, vulgarly, but never quite obnoxiously outside of the rules, woh sharam se khel-kood joh Rani ka main hathiyaar, modus operandi tha last film mein, that’s a little lost?
Perhaps in an homage to the pulpiest of them all, Khoon Bhari Maang, there is a sub-plot about crocodile infested waters, and I love a good croc on screen. If youre living in small town jiske main talab mein magarmach aa gaye hain, nature ka balance bigad gaya hai. Saath mein lekin edit ka balance bhi off hai. Some scenes are straight up cut mid-action to hide the next move from the viewers, but its done with the finesse of a bull in a china shop and hence they are more abrupt than intriguing, making it seem like shots are straight up missing from the line up. A DNA report results show up while a near encounter is about to happen, more people turn up dead without much dot connection and the attempt to trick the viewer into believing a character is dead when they’re really not is overplayed. Means, that was ALREADY the big twist in the first one, wasn’t it?
Not a whole lot more insight I can provide here on account of me being unable to read anything more into this film. I did however VERY much enjoy Raj Shekhar’s song “Sach hi tujhey azad karega” composed by Anurag Saikia, and I think full protest anthem potential gaane mein, anti-establishment collage video agar banaane hain Twitter ke liye. Suno YouTube aur bataao.
So, on a scale of 1 to 10, Phir Aayi Haseen Dilruba is….600 historical events ho gaye hain is hafte ke andar-andar. Again, if youre feeling pummeled, thoda aas paas chowpatty ya park mein sair kar aao aaj dinner ke baad.
My name is Sucharits, trying to hitthat 150k mark, subscribe ka button hai neeche, karein click!
