Movie Review HINDI AndhaDhun Tabu-Radhika-Ayushmann rock, and Sriram Raghavan is a superstar
By Anna MM Vetticad Special to India Parent Magazine
considerable irritation to Simi. Her ambition is a career in films and she wants Pammi to use his network to help her. From these unconnected strands is born a black comedy that is breathless in its pace and breathtaking in the scope of its imagination, linking seemingly random occurrences in the cosmos, and with all its entertainment value, arriving at an unexpectedly thoughtful study of both kismet and human nature. People tend to let their guard down with those who cannot see or hear and with children, fear also often causes us to appear guilty of more than what we have done, and the writers play around gleefully with these truths. The premise is completely wacko, a what-if to beat all what-ifs. It is also familiar terrain for Raghavan whose films Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddaar and Badlapur are a testament to his fixation on evil crackpots and cold-hearted criminality. The story by Hemanth Rao and Raghavan himself has been expanded into a multi- layered screenplay by the latter with Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti (also the film's editor) and Yogesh Chandekar. At one level, the result of their collaboration is a hugely enjoyable, fast-paced thriller, but at another it is a quietly observant tale reminding us that however convinced we may be that we have outsmarted fate, the universe is always the boss of our lives. It takes a bunch of nutty, unfettered actors to put their faith in this nutty, impertinent script. As it happens, the cast and writing of Andhadhun are made for each other. Very often, a character's disability becomes a crutch that actors lean on, letting that aspect of the part over- shadow their entire performance. Khurrana is not that kind of artiste. While he does not stumble even once in playing blind, he is just as effective in conveying Akash's amorality, affections, aspirations and fears. sIn a smaller role, Apte exemplifies guilelessness and innocence that are a refreshing contrast to the machinations all around her. The supporting cast is impeccable, never once faltering when the storyline takes them to places that lesser actors could have reduced to a farce. Kabir Sajid — the darling little boy from Secret Superstar — beautifully, albeit briefly, plays a child in Andhadhun who epitomises the moral ambivalence of most characters in the story.
Cast: Tabu, Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte, Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Chhaya Kadam, Ashwini Kalsekar, Zakir Hussain, Pawan Singh, Kabir Sajid Director: Sriram Raghavan Watching Race 3 was an inscrutable, hazy, and conIn 2016, Priyadarshan made a Malayalam film about a blind man (played by Mohanlal) who becomes an unwitting 'eyewitness' to a murder. The hero's visual disability in Oppam was accompanied by a heightened sense of hearing and smell that made him a potential threat to the killer. Now what happens if a killer's self-preservation instinct causes them to not care that the 'witness' is sight- less? That question was the starting point of an intrigu- ing French 13-minuter titled L'accordeur (The Piano Tuner) from 2010, directed by Oliver Treiner. Writer-director Sriram Raghavan draws on an atom of just a single element from the French short (which is acknowledged here in the credits), turning it into a full- length Hindi feature that should rank among the most fascinating, fun, funny suspense thrillers ever to emerge from Bollywood. If you are determined to find out what that one element is, you could watch L'accordeur on the internet. You could, but why would you? Because even discovering that secret in the opening half hour of Raghavan's Andhadhun (The Blind Melody) is a plea- surable experience. Here is what little can be revealed of the plot. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Andhadhun's Akash, a pianist in Pune who is introduced to us as a blind musi- cian trying desperately to complete a tune. Akash is frus- trated with the stereotypical expectation that a disability sharpens the creative mind, since he just cannot find the inspiration to wrap up that damned melody. His new friend Sophie (Radhika Apte) is unmoved by his strug- gle: incompleteness, she tells him, is what gives certain things their finish. In the posher quarters of the metropolis live the glamorous Simi (Tabu) and her wealthy, much older husband, the forgotten Hindi film star Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan). Pramod a.k.a. Pammi is stuck in a time warp in which he keeps rewatching his hits, causing
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