A racy entertaining thriller after long time - Kahaani

Kahaani (2012)
Starring - Vidya Balan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Parambrata Chatterjee
Direction - Sujai Ghosh

After quite a long time, I got the feeling of watching a very good Indian thriller movie. At least for me this is the case, as I haven’t seen any film “made in India” as good as this one in recent years. When a husband sent away to work is missing for days, a wife dares to go to any extreme to find him, despite her pregnancy and health conditions. Kahaani is the story of one such wife.

Vidya Baghchi is a pregnant woman living in London with her husband Arnab. When Arnab, who came to Kolkata for an assignment didn’t contact her for days after the assignment was over, she herself arrives to Kolkata from London to find him. There she faces a number of obstacles during the investigative pursuit of her beloved husband. What makes the rest of the story is whether she accomplished what she came for. 

For a woman centered film, there is more responsibility on women actors usually and Vidya Balan does it with ease and perfection here. She did come up with yet another excellent performance, as a pregnant and naïve Vidya Bhagchi, without any support or any known person in a densely populated metro city, but well determined in purpose of her travel. She is the ‘one woman army’ of Kahaani, a center of attraction, fulfilling all the responsibilities. There is no wonder she is considered to be one of the very few well-talented actress. She seems to be turning into directors’ actress when the plot is fully woman-centered, as she has already done a few such films like Ishqiya, The Dirty Picture, and No one killed Jessica. I’d like to share a thing I once read in a magazine long back about Vidya. For the tamil film Run, its director rejected her during screen tests, as she was not beautiful enough to be a heroine. Thanks to him. Things turned out different after that!!!

Parambrata Chatterjee as a rookie cop Rana did an impressive job as the one who supports Vidya right from her arrival to Kolkata and throughout her pursuit. Nawazuddin Siddiqui as ruthless intelligence officer Khan gives liveliness to his role. The LIC agent cum hitman Bob Biswas role done by Saswata Chatterjee is interesting. There are other small characters who did what they are asked to without fail.

The director of the film is Sujai Ghosh, who has failed to make an impression with his previous ventures. But this time he succeeded in making attempt a fruitful one giving a firm place for himself. The story written by Advaita and co-written by Sujai is gripping and lively to the end. The extensive research performed and effort laid down, in order to bring an authentic Kolkata to screen is largely evident. As a native of Kolkata, it helped Sujai do this in a better way. Photography by Setu is another attribute to the success of the film. To achieve the reality, director Sujai filmed the scenes in the streets of Kolkata without the knowledge of people there, with a crew less in number and barely known. This aspect of filmmaking is called guerilla filmmaking. It includes the densely crowded Durja Pooja festival scene also. Background score by Clinton Cerejo is in par with the script.

There may be some flaws in the film, as is with every film. But Vidya’s mesmerizing performance as well as the edgy story is well enough to make you not think of that. Don’t miss this rare, racy entertaining thriller if you haven’t seen it yet.

My Rating: 8.6/10