Rajkumar Gupta’s new film sets out to dissect the infamous Jessica Lall murder of 1999. For a film dealing with an incident that shook the whole country, it reveals the unflinching idiom of realism that the filmmaker showed in his debut film Aamir . But there is a flip side. Gupta, like so many others dealing with real controversies on the screen, refuses to take names. Except Jessica’s crusading sister Sabrina ( played here by Vidya Balan), most names — including the culprit’s — have been changed.
The aspect reveals an awful truth. Indian cinema is ready to tackle real subjects in a real way but is still coy when it comes to naming names. We witnessed as much in Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai and Rakht Charitra . We witness the same here again.
To refresh your memory, Jessica Lall, a model, was working as a celebrity bartender at a bigshot party in Delhi. The son of a powerful politician demanded she serve him a drink after the bar was closed (you know him as Manu Sharma from news headlines, but the name has been changed here). She refused. He shot her as 300 guests watched.
Gupta blends those facts with drama to set up a fine political thriller. The film looks at how the accused were initially acquitted by a lower court before nationwide protests, spearheaded by the media, forced the law to reopen the case and change the sentence.
Rani Mukherji, as the go- getter TV reporter Meera, represents the media here. While no particular female journalist can be credited with the campaign that led to a turnaround in the case, Rani’s casting is a clever box- office twist.
The film is unusual on two counts. First, this is a very different Delhi that Gupta presents — far removed from the perfect landscape of commercial ventures. This film bares the ugly side of the city as it exists in its highest echelons, where denizens are soaked in a drunken revelry of power.
The other thing is how well Gupta has utilised female bonding to move forward his story. Not many Bollywood films are woman- centric. Even fewer boast of two female lead actors. Sabrina’s equation with Meera unfolds gradually as the plot moves and the screenplay accommodates some fine moments for the two leads. Indeed, the film belongs to its lead actresses.
Rani is fury embodied. Vidya does a fine job in underplaying Sabrina’s resilience. The film is brilliant but it reveals an awful truth. Indian cinema is ready to tackle real subjects in a real way but, unlike Hollywood, is still coy when it comes to naming actual names.
Rating - 4 / 5
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