KAHAANI 2 (U/A)
Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Cast: Vidya Balan, Arjun Rampal, Tota Roy Choudhury, Kharaj Mukherjee, Manini Chadha
Running time: 130 minutes
From movies to TV series to viral web videos, there’s so much audio-visual software being bombarded on us daily that we struggle to even remember what we watched last week. But when something like Kahaani hits you, the impact is so deep on the senses that even after almost five years it feels like a fresh brew.
And finally the Kahaani 2 Friday arrives. After threatening to come for years. The lights go off and as the opening images start forming on screen, there’s instantly that same air of frenzy, masterfully concocted in the 2012 film by director Sujoy Ghosh, actor Vidya Balan and editor Namrata Rao.
It’s another kahaani. Another Vidya. Not Bagchi, but Sinha. Her teenage daughter Mini is paralysed waist down. They live in Chandernagore and Vidya takes the local train every day to work in a Calcutta office. One night she returns home to discover Mini is missing. The kidnapper calls, doesn’t demand a ransom but wants her to come over. As she runs on the road frantically, Vidya is hit by a taxi and goes into coma.
Even as Vidya lies half-dead in the Chandernagore hospital, sub-inspector Inderjeet Singh (Arjun Rampal) starts his investigation and immediately identifies Vidya as Durga Rani Singh, wanted for kidnapping and murder. All this happens in the first few minutes of Kahaani 2 and you fasten your seat belts for yet another familiar thrill ride.
And then comes the master stroke. As Inder starts reading the comatose woman’s diary, we dive into an eight-year-old flashback in Kalimpong which reveals how Durga Rani Singh became Vidya Sinha. Here the film’s fabric completely changes and Kahaani 2 mutates into a more terrifying tale dealing with child abuse. It comes out of the blue, it hits you really hard and sucks you in deeper.
What also works beautifully in the first half of the second Kahaani is that the flashback is narrated by Vidya. Now, if Usual Suspects’s Verbal Kint tells us another tale, would we trust him?
So, as the kelenkari in Kalimpong unfolds, you are in two minds whether it’s just another one of Vidya’s “stories” or did all this actually happen. That layer of suspicion glides us into the second half, where the film hits a roadblock of sorts.
Half 2 of Kahaani 2 becomes disappointingly predictable as more and more potbellied cops start appearing from everywhere and there is a forced scramble towards the finish line. In true Kahaani tradition, there is action in the climax and a twist in the tail but the motivations of the antagonists look tepid and even their modus operandi a tad amateurish. And with the film losing steam, the loopholes and the convenient plotting stare into your face.
But making all the wrongs right and making up for all the rubbish she’s done in the last few years like Shaadi Ke Side Effects and Hamari Adhuri Kahani, Vidya Balan is exemplary in Kahaani 2. Right from the first frame to the last, she’s an absolute tour de force, steering your emotions at will. The bond she forges with the girl and all the unbelievable things she ends up doing convincingly is sheer testament to the brilliance of Balan.
Arjun Rampal is very good too, completely at ease in the shoes of the cop, who’s also quite a loving husband. It’s just that he’s so suave and stylish, it’s difficult to accept him physically as a subordinate to Kharaj Mukherjee’s uncouth and loud police inspector. Tota Roy Choudhury has a very endearing cameo. Also watch out for debutante Manini Chadha, who plays Arjun’s wife.
Calcutta boy Tapan Basu shoots Kahaani 2 with the right doses of edginess and darkness. Clinton Cerejo’s chilling background score and Namrata’s razor-sharp cuts keep the pace up. And a special word for Tollywood mainstay Anirban Sengupta — our Potla — who makes his Bolly debut as a sound designer with elan.
Kahaani 2’s magic is uneven, with an incredible first half and a little lost second half. If the first film of the franchise was “a mother of a story”, this one is a story of a mother.
And boy, Mamma rocks!
KAHAANI 2 facts
♦ Kahaani 2 has no characters coming back from Kahaani even though actors like Vidya Balan and Kharaj Mukherjee return to play new roles.
♦ Like the first film, it’s a very Bengali affair, this time set in Chandernagore, Kalimpong and Calcutta.
♦ Again, like the first film, snatches of old R.D. Burman and Kishore Kumar songs in Hindi and Bangla play as diegetic music in the background.
♦ The film Rajnigandha plays an important cameo in Kahaani 2.
♦ Masoom boy Jugal Hansraj makes a screen appearance six years after his small role in Pyaar Impossible, that he also directed.
Pratim D. Gupta
Does Vidya Balan in Kahaani 2 deserve the best actress crown of the year? Tell t2@abp.in
