All of Gandhari‘s attempts to shroud itself in mystery are laughable, sighs Sukanya Verma.
IMAGE: Swastika Mukherjee, Taapsee Pannu, Ishwak Singh and Mita Vashist in Gandhari.
Key Points
- Gandhari follows Bani (Taapsee Pannu) and Gokul (Ishwak Singh) as their five-year-old daughter is abducted at a railway station, leading to a desperate search.
- Despite a promising premise, the movie quickly devolves into manufactured thrills and illogical plot twists, sacrificing narrative sense for contrived revelations.
- While Taapsee Pannu and other actors deliver histrionics, Ishwak Singh’s portrayal of a desperate father is noted as a highlight until the script falters.
Losing your child in a crowd can be a parent’s worst nightmare.
Bani (Taapsee Pannu) and Gokul (Ishwak Singh) go through this ordeal when their five-year-old daughter is abducted by a sari-clad stranger at Joypurra railway station.
Unfamiliar with the fictional West Bengal town where cops are least interested in finding their girl and ignore a distraught mother’s cries suffering from temporary blindness following an injury caused by running after the offender, a couple’s holiday turns into horror in a matter of minutes.
Quick Decline After A Promising Start
Stop in your tracks right there. All the curiosity Gandhari generates in its first few moments dies down just as quickly when the manufactured thrills masquerading as prospects soon reveal the emperor without clothes.
Directed by Devashish Makhija, Gandhari, which credits Kanika Dhillon as producer, creative producer, story, screenplay and dialogues writer, alludes to the voluntarily blindfolded Mahabharata character of the same name.
Gandhari chose to share a life of darkness with her blind husband Dhritarashtra as an act of empathy whereas Bani’s reason to don dark glasses is her daughter. The analogy is as apt as medu vada and donut being the same because they both have a hole in the middle.
Her sense-your-surroundings-and-attack-by-training-blindfolded approach evokes more Bloodsport‘s Van Damme (or Ajay Devgn if you’ve only watched its clunky Bollywood remake, Jigar) given how Bani’s practice sessions with her childhood mentor are more martial arts than Mahabharata.
Unconvincing Plot and Characters
Regular instances of child kidnapping and trafficking in the region prompt the Anti Human Trafficking Unit (a blank-faced Jatin Sarna) to intervene.
Amidst amped up surveillance, suspects abound as the camera casts its cynical eye at everybody — water filter service agents (a formidable but wasted Chhaya Kadam), non-profit organisation runners (Swastika Mukherjee), jhalmuri sellers (Mita Vashisht), paint-faced behrupiya troupes (led by Prashant Narayanans kohl-lined eye close-up most of the time), inspectors and nurses.
A recurring mention of the deadly Black Hole gang strives to create a menacing mood in the godforsaken town. Only it’s all too bogus.
Makhija has a knack for atmospheric storytelling. He also does urgency well.
Gandhari‘s grotesque inclinations benefit from these traits.
But writer Kanika Dhillon’s deluge of daft twists do not think twice before sacrificing sense at the altar. All of Gandhari‘s attempts to shroud itself in mystery are laughable.
There are no secrets up its sleeve. Everything is hidden in plain sight only to the characters of its glaringly obvious story, one that’s so lazy, it doesn’t even bother explaining how a husband and wife familiarised themselves to brand new surroundings in less than a month.
Lack of Emotional Depth and Thrills
None of the guilt and grief they must be feeling or its impact on their relationship is important enough to dwell for its makers.
Bani’s better half is busy investigating on the sly, wherein random old men fill him on secret tunnels and British Raj maps.
But Bani’s ascension into gymnast, fighter and detective asserts a mother’s sorrow is as superior as her feminism. Unsurprisingly, there’s a festival around the corner likening Bani’s mission and mythical goddess Chaumukhi’s victory over evil Magrasur.
Gandhari‘s timing of places and people is handed on a silver platter. Theres nothing thriller-like about its lack of deception. Every development is treated like a revelation but ends up looking like a contrivance against a synthetic milieu and hotchpotch of Odia-Bangla accents.
Plenty of histrionics on display by the likes of Taapsee Pannu, Mita Vashist, Swastika Mukherjee and Prashant Narayanan but with a sense of monotony about them.
It is Ishwak’s portrayal of a desperate father and powerless husband that hits all the right notes until the script goes all blindfolded on him.
Gandhari streams on Netflix.
Gandhari Review Rediff Rating:
