Andhadhun (2018)

Andhadhun (2018)

"What is life? It all depends on liver"

When these are the opening lines of a movie, you know it’s going to be wild.

Based upon and duly acknowledging 2010 French short film L'Accordeur (The Piano Tuner) Andhadhun is easily the best dark comedy thriller of Hindi Cinema. It’s unpredictable, it’s fast, it’s funny and it memorizes you from the very first scene and doesn’t let you go; not even to bathroom.

It’s tricky to write about it without giving away the plot but let’s try.

Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) is a blind piano player in search of inspiration, he accidently meets Sophie (Radhika Apte) and starts playing piano at her restaurant. One of the regular customer is Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan) a film star of old times, who invites Akash to play at his house for his wife Simi (Tabu), and things are never the same again, literary.

The story keeps on developing on its own; the situation keeps on getting out of control for every character. The characters are not caricatures but normal human beings mixed up in difficult situation. Even the negative characters don’t enjoy crime yet they are ruthless in pursuit of their goals. Even smaller characters are well placed and add flavor to the whole experience.

The background music is exceptional and provides tremendous mood for the movie; I would specially like to mention the music piece which is being played during a scene in which people are trying to mop the floor of blood and trying to dispose a body.

The screenplay is amazingly tight and the story keeps on throwing twists on you at a more regular basis than you can handle. It is a director’s medium and Sriram Raghvan uses it well. He even pulls up an ‘inception’ in the end.

Performance wise Tabu is exceptional; it would be a shame if she wins an award in supporting actress category, she deserves better. Ayushmann is perfect, it’s not his expressions but non-expressions which is praise worthy; you will understand when you watch the movie.

Overall watching this movie is like driving very fast on the wrong side of the road, you never know what would hit you.

Rating ****1/2