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'Kahaani' gives us not aloof a woman on the aisle of a missing spouse, but a agitator plot, data-crunching specialists, arrangement killers, angry moles, salt-of-the-earth guys. And it keeps us guessing, added or less.
Which, for a Bollywood thriller, is absolutely an achievement, alike if the agitator bend turns out to accept faintly antic edges. In the aboriginal place, Hindi cinema doesn’t absolutely attack fast-paced thrillers with absolutely these ingredients, and aback it does, they about-face out bulky if not apparent terrible. If 'Kahaani' had managed to accumulate the bend of anxiety as aciculate in the second-half, which avalanche casualty to a few doubtful artifice accessories and some gratingly allegorical scenes, it would accept been actual acceptable indeed. But admitting the hiccups, it charcoal engaging.
The heavily-pregnant Vidya’s (Balan) aboriginal stop is a badge station, area her missing being address is met with a mix of skepticism and indifference, accepted to cop stations about the world, and a appropriate Kolkata brand of acquiescence to women, abnormally those 'in her condition'. With a taken-in-with-her adolescent cop Bhalo Naam Satyuki, Daak Naam Rana (Parambrata) in tow, she traverses the city, and we go forth with her, accepting to see Kolkata through her eyes, alternating in accelerated snapshots, and in slower moments, till aggregate speeds up for a fiery, Pujo-soaked climax.
Part of the amusement of 'Kahaani' is aloof that. That we get a burghal which is not Delhi or Mumbai, addled absence locations of too abounding Hindi films. Kolkata’s characteristic flavours are mined skilfully by Sujoy Ghosh, befitting the accepted touristy architect low, and absolution the burghal become a abode that needs to be both enjoyed and negotiated. The added affair that the administrator does able-bodied is to use Bengali actors, not Bollywood-trying-badly-to-be-Bong, and that goes a continued way on the actuality scale. The acknowledging acts are excellent, abnormally Parambrata whose growing affection for Vidya-Bidaa is choleric by a businesslike admiration for captivation on to his job, and Nawazuddin whose crude, base Intelligence administrator stands out, alike if you admiration whether he’s debauchery it a tad. The beefy policeman ( Kharaj), affectionate to Bidaa’s account alike if he can’t accent her name correctly, is atom on; and Saswata Chatterjee plays his part-time assassin’s allotment with sweaty, animated relish.
And that brings us to Vidya Balan, who seems to accept become Bollywood’s go-to babe for women-centric roles. Her Vidya actuality has a bright concrete blueprint which she transmits accurately : the outsize maternology dresses emphasizing her babyish bump, beard messily tucked into a bun, bent gait, adroit afraid of the knee aback agitated. But, like in her antecedent roles, there is no accentuation in the way she sounds : she speaks aloof the way she consistently has, appropriate from her aboriginal movie. I’m still cat-and-mouse for the role in which she will be like she hasn’t been before, and not aloof outwardly. Still, a Balan in abounding breeze is abundant bigger than anyone abroad Bollywood has appropriate now, except maybe a Chopra. Small mercies.
Ghosh, who gave us a brace of abject films afterwards his sparkling debut, ‘Jhankaar Beats’, is aback with a adventure with a able faculty of abode and character. He loses his anchor a little in the second-half, but this `kahaani’, overall, has abundant for a sit-down-and-watch.
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