Anik Datta’s transition from being one of the most gifted ad filmmakers in the city to feature films has been a long time coming. But it has been worth the wait.

In many ways Bhooter Bhobishyot is like no other ghost story you’ve seen before. It’s not inspired by little girls possessed by sinister spirits, swivelling their heads a full 360-degree angle and spewing green vomit. Or, innocent-looking boys with a devilish gleam in their eyes, dealing gory death to their own parents. It’s not spine-chilling. It won’t force your girlfriend to cling to your arm in holy terror.

If Bhooter Bhobishyot does owe anything to anyone at all, it is to your home-grown Lila Majumder’s lovely book for children, Shob Bhuturey. Only difference being, little ghostlings in Majumder’s stories are here replaced by your next-door-neighbour adults. In spite of the occasional bickerings and back-bitings between them, they remain essentially good-natured, vulnerable, inoffensive and, in the end, adorable.

The story begins at a somewhat leisurely pace. Parambrata, an ad filmmaker, arrives at a grand old palace on a ‘recce’ tour, along with his production manager and a rather fetching, chain-smoking girl as his assistant director (Anindita Bose). But his director of photography is still stuck in a traffic jam somewhere in the outskirts of the city and the director perforce has to wait for him inside this huge, deserted house for a while.

Deserted house did we say? While Parambrata is dozing off, what else to do, he is suddenly awakened by a resident of the house who politely inquires as to what his business in this house might be. Upon hearing that the visitor is an aspiring film director, he volunteers to narrate a story of his own, to be turned into a feature.

This is where the real fun begins. And this is where I have to stop for fear of spilling all the beans.

Bhooter Bhobishyot is different in that it doesn’t have a hero or heroine in the conventional sense. What it does have is a gallery of kinky, eccentric spirits that come in all shapes and sizes — sexy, fat, thin, young and old. To add to the heady brew, there’s also a cardboard box villain and a sexy ‘item’ number that lures him to his doom.

One of the highlights of the film is undoubtedly its racy dialogues, bubbling with wit, puns, wordplay, innuendos and “oxymorons”. The influence of Satyajit Ray is unmistakable — in the rhyming of the dialogues, in the designing of the title cards, even in the background score. But this is all deliberately done for the discerning audience to recognise it as an ovation to the master.

The other highlight is the standout performance from the entire cast. Even so, Paran with his inverted question mark hairstyle, Swastika in her slightly ghoulish make-up and voluptuous persona, Mumtaz as the lovelorn young girl and George Baker as the stiff upper lip Lord Ramsey bawling out Auld lang syne with great gusto, specially catch your eye. Oh, and Saswata as a mafia don is absolutely brilliant!

Avik Mukhopadhyay’s imaginative camerawork, Arghya Kamal Mitra’s crisp editing and Raja Narayan Deb’s appropriate numbers are added bonuses.

The film is not without its minor flaws. The lisping of the promoter’s sidekick is at times inconsistent. The beginning of the movie is somewhat slow and self-conscious. The title cards, based on Ray’s Guga-Ba ba, look a little dated.

But, all in all, Bhooter Bhobishyot is a thoroughly enjoyable watch, without any intellectual pretensions. Unless, of course, you see the film as a last desperate cry of anguish against the mall-multiplex culture that’s fast invading our Bengali psyche.