UGLY
A good director can tell a tale with such honesty that you
are just swept away with the force of emotions that are aroused in you. This is
in particular the forte of Anurag Kashyap, who doesn’t beat around the bush and
states baldly the facts as they are.
Needless to say “UGLY” is a dark, edgy and at times moody
movie which, with a wave and a gesture beckons you in to a cesspool of deep, tumultuous
relationships, of which selfishness is the core emotion.
A little girl goes missing and the hunt for her starts in
earnest. But this ain’t a ganster movie if that’s what you are expecting. It is
instead a movie that explores relationships more than any other Anurag Kashyap
has ever done.
There is the mother of the girl who has remarried, but finds
that happiness eludes her a second time too. In fact, the girl’s stepfather-
played by Ronit Roy is a specialist in the art of silent torture and without
raising his voice or even resorting to violence is sadistically controlling his
wife and her daughter. The girl’s father is a loser of the first order and
allows his unachievable ambitions to completely overshadow his life and all his
relationships. All the other characters are in some way connected to these
three.
The reason that a movie becomes a masterpiece is coz,
nothing is left to chance and great care is taken over each and every detail.
And Kashyap does this with each and everything in this movie. Be it the casting
or the locales or the camera angles, you can see the thought that has gone into
each nuance. This isn’t a movie for the
fun and frolic cine-goer, it is for the dedicated movie buff who is discerning
and enjoys the genius that goes into making a classic. But all in all it was a movie
I really enjoyed.
Each relationship in this movie is so dysfunctional and is
probably a derivative of Kashyap’s own life. No character in the movie actually
has their own thoughts and most of them end up reacting to what the central character
played by Ronit Roy does or says. And for this reason alone I would say that
Ronit is the central character of this movie. Anybody who has watched Udaan,
knows the acting prowess of Mr.Roy, but this movie catapults him to another strata
altogether, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie opens even more doors for
him. The personal life of this man too, is an utterly fascinating tale and I
hope that one day someone else too takes cognizance of that and makes it a biopic.
But I digress, lost is a little girl and all the people
related to her do want her back, but they don’t mind terribly if this is a tad
bit delayed as long as they are able to reap a few fringe benefits. And so the
poor little girl is now being used by all the players involved to further their
own agenda.
The tale then becomes so convoluted that even as a viewer
you lose complete track of the fact that there is a little girl missing. In
fact the end came as a shock to me, and more shocking not for the story value
but for the fact that I too forgot that there existed this story coz a little
girl was lost! Ha! Ha!
All the actors are perfect in their roles – Tejaswini kolhapure
is the Mom, Girish Kulkarni is the cop assisting in the investigation and Rahul
Bhat is actually the surprise package as the missing girl’s loser father.
Surveen Chawla is understated and super in her portrayal as the truly wicked
element, as is the guy playing Rahul Bhat’s friend. A false note is hit though,
by the IT expert cops who don’t come across as genuine at all. All the other
minor role artistes are reminiscent of the casting that used to happen in
movies like Mandi, Bazaar , Chupke Chupke, Bawarchi etc. Think of it, the entire cast in those movies
went on to actually become established names.
This is a movie which satisfied the part of me that craves
good cinema. You may feel the same way…..Give it a shot!
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