Rating: 3/5 (Three stars)
Star cast: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Indraneil Sengupta.
What’s Good: The engaging suspense drama; the performances.
What’s Bad: The narrative style which will appeal mostly to the class audience.
Verdict: Kahaani is an engaging and entertaining movie.
Loo break: None.
Watch or Not?: Watch it because it’s an intelligent thriller told in a novel way.
Kahaani Review: Script Analysis
The story of Kahaani is such that it keeps the audience guessing about what is going to happen next. As such the screenplay is very engaging and entertaining. While Vidya’s character draws the audience’s sympathy, the way she goes about the search makes the audience change their opinion of her. The climax, which reveals the truth about the entire case, is shocking. Overall, the writers (story: Sujoy Ghosh, Advaita Kala; additional screenplay: Suresh Nair, Nikhil Vyas) have done a commendable job. The dialogues, by Ritesh Shah, Sutapa Sikdar and Sujoy Ghosh, are natural.
Kahaani Review: Star Performances & Direction
Vidya Balan is the life of the film. She depicts the helpless yet brave pregnant woman very realistically. Parambrata Chattopadhyay, as Rana, is a discovery. He is superb as the young cop who falls in love with Vidya. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is memorable as Khan. Indraneil Sengupta does a fine job. Saswata Chatterjee (as the assailant, Bob Biswas) is just wonderful. Darshan Jariwala, Dhritiman Chatterjee and others offer able support.
Sujoy Ghosh’s direction is very good. He makes the narrative engaging from the start to the end and extracts fine performances from his cast. However, his narrative style will appeal more to the city-based class audience. Vishal-Shekhar’s music is very good. Setu’s cinematography makes the nooks and crannies of Kolkata come alive. Production design, by Kaushik Das and Subrata Barik, is realistic.
Kahaani Review: The Last Word
On the whole, Kahaani is a very good entertainer which will pick up by word of mouth publicity.
Tags: Darshan Jariwala Kahaani Mrigank Dhaniwala Nawazuddin Siddiqui Reviews Sujoy Ghosh Vidya Balan
Correction
I had previously posted this as a review by Komal Nahta. I had not noticed the different name on the top of the review page. Because it is Koimoi.com and the style of review was same as Komal Nahta I assumed it is his review. Sorry about that.
I am not posting Mrigank Dhaniwala’s Agent Vinod review which is now on koimoi.com.