Via Darjeeling:a thriller minus the thrills

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Vinay Pathak, Parvin Dabbas, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh, Prashant Narayanan, Sandhya Mridul

Direction: Arindam Nandy

Producer: Joy Ganguly

Written by: Arindam Nandy , Atul Sabharwal

The film tells the story of a married couple Ankur and Rimli Sharma (played by KK Menon and Sonali Kurkarni respectively), who had gone to Darjeeling on their honeymoon. But on the day of their return, Ankur vanishes from the scene. Many years later, the then inspector in charge of the case (played by Vinay Pathak) who failed to solve it, recounts the events to a group of his friends. The friends come up with their own versions of what might have caused Ankur’s disappearance. However, these multiple narrations couldn’t translate into a riveting story. The open-ended stories by the friends failed to connect in a single thread, which if happened, would have made the plot a lot more meaningful.

Acting wise, Rajat and Simone are good. The others are just average. Sonali, in fact, irritates a lot with her mannerisms and over the top histrionics. The lack of a good script had little to offer to these polished actors. So, the sheen is off their performance but the director, rather than the actors, is to be blamed. Even the end of the film is abrupt and leaves the audience wanting. The bottom-line: an unsuccessful attempt to present Akira Kurosawa’s “Rashomon” on screen.

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Image courtesy: NFDC