250 total views, 2 views today

Haseen Dillruba 2021 Movie Review Poster Trailer Online

Director: Vinil Mathew

Writer: Kanika Dhillon(screenplay)

Stars: Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Harshvardhan Rane

A young woman obsessed with crime thriller novels is accused of plotting her husband’s gruesome murder. But as the investigation delves into her rocky married life and a torrid affair, what seemed like an open and shut case, turns into a complex whodunit.

Rani’s (Taapsee Pannu) married life has much less action than the gritty crime novels she is a fan of. While Rani is fiery and seductive with a history of multiple flings, her husband Rishu (Vikrant Massey) is the quintessential good boy nerd, who toes the line. But soon Rani’s seemingly simple life finds a lot more action than she had bargained for, when Rishu’s hunky bad boy cousin Neel (Harshvardhan Rane) comes to stay with them for a few days.

Director Vinil Mathew and writer Kanika Dhillon take us into the starkly different worlds of Rani and Rishu that has the simplicity and relatability of a small town and at the same time, an eerie sense of the looming disaster waiting to happen. This in itself lends the film’s non-linear screenplay an undercurrent of tension and constant suspense. This makes it quite engaging, entertaining and unpredictable for the most part, as we see the lead characters go through their journey of love, lust and desires. There might be a point where you’d have cracked the plot, but that won’t be a big spoiler.

Because at the heart of this twisted love story are strong emotions and flawed characters. Like the strong and stoic Rani, played efficiently by Taapsee Pannu. A lot of the film’s suspense hinges on Taapsee’s pitch-perfect expressions and the way she deals with the uncomfortable graph of her character. It’s hard to read and hence hard to play, but Taapsee makes it look effortless. She makes Rani look seductive and desirable with conviction and not at all distasteful. Vikrant Massey is aptly cast as the mild-mannered yet assertive Rishu, who talks less, but says a lot through his eyes. Kanika gives them nicely etched characters and ample scope to develop through the narrative that builds slowly yet sharply. They also get to mouth colourful dialogues (Ankana Joshi) attributed to the imaginary novelist ‘Panditji.’ Harshvardhan Rane does well within his limited scope for performance.

Among the character actors, Yamini Das as Rishu’s raucous mother, brings good comic relief and innocence. Music (Amit Trivedi) and cinematography (Jayakrishna Gummadi) compliment the film’s contrasting tone.

‘Haseen Dillruba’ has its moments of being preposterous and unbelievable, but it never stops being a delectably dark and defiant love story with a thrilling twist.