{"id":7563,"date":"2016-07-24T20:33:42","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T15:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=7563"},"modified":"2016-07-24T20:33:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T15:03:42","slug":"dobaraa-review-more-than-just-a-faithful-adaptation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=7563","title":{"rendered":"Dobaaraa Review: More than just a faithful adaptation"},"content":{"rendered":"\nT<\/span>here are two electrical storms separated by 25 years that seem to cause all of the space-time kerfuffle in Dobaaraa.<\/em> But this is a film that\u2019s powered by two other forces of nature. The first is director Anurag Kashyap, who\u2019s a lot more versatile than people usually give him credit for. The other is Taapsee Pannu, who is evolving constantly as an actor. On her day, she can be undeniable, gluing your eyes to the screen. The two of them \u2013 along with a third secret weapon, who I\u2019ll come to \u2013 deliver a largely compelling thriller that actually outdoes the original film it is based on. Imported adaptations seem to be quite the rage in Hindi cinema this August, but Dobaaraa works because it is both moody and energetic while it lasts, with a sufficiently rewarding emotional payoff in the end to make it worth your while.\n\n

Dobaaraa works because it is both moody and energetic while it lasts, with a sufficiently rewarding emotional payoff in the end to make it worth your while.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nThe mood comes from Kashyap\u2019s stewardship, the energy from Taapsee Pannu\u2019s portrayal of her character Antara, who unwittingly changes the past during the aforementioned electrical storm(s). You see, while Antara in 2021 is trying to make the best of her married life and be there for her daughter Avanti, she meets school-going Anay in 1996, through an old, analog television and camcorder. Anay died back in her current timeline, in an accident that occurred shortly after he was eyewitness to a murder. The incredulous storm-caused connection between Antara and Anay means that she is able to prevent that accident, saving Anay\u2019s life. This in turn alters her future in a devastating way \u2013 suddenly, there is no daughter, no Avanti. The storm will last for 72 hours, so that\u2019s the ticking clock she has, to somehow figure out how she can be reunited with a daughter that no one else believes exists, in this new changed timeline for her.\n\nTaapsee Pannu seems be making \u2018Oriol Paulo Adaptation Protagonist\u2019 a little sub-genre for herself. She commits to this one hard, making it work shades better than her turn in Badla<\/em>. It helps that the cast around her is fairly solid. Pavail Gulati plays the cop investigating Antara\u2019s seemingly far-fetched claims and her missing daughter. His character has a bit of a journey as he gets embroiled in this extraordinary situation, and Gulati makes you invest in him slowly. The excellent Rahul Bhatt plays Antara\u2019s husband \u2013 Avanti\u2019s father \u2013 in the original timeline. In the new one, he doesn\u2019t even recognize Antara. In both timelines, he\u2019s a questionable husband and perhaps the only source of the film\u2019s humour. He doesn\u2019t quite get a meaty part like in Kashyap\u2019s own Ugly (2013)<\/em>, but Bhatt is somehow always fun to watch, as long as he\u2019s not brooding too much. But then, how much you buy into a story like this ultimately depends on much more than just good characters.\n\n

Fitting in a decent time travel tale into a feature film is tricky, because it is one of those science-fiction elements that often demand too many leaps of faith.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nFitting in a decent time travel tale into a feature film is tricky, because it is one of those science-fiction elements that often demand too many leaps of faith. Every viewer will have a slightly different degree of how much they\u2019re buying in to the story, and how much they\u2019re willing to suspend their disbelief. Sometimes it may also depend on the level of proficiency in special and general relativity, even if the film doesn\u2019t explicitly turn into a physics lesson. Which means, if you don\u2019t nail the tightrope walk between smarting up and dumbing down, the film will crash.\n\nThis balance is critical to the intrigue that Dobaaraa\u2019s sustains, and the person responsible for that is editor Aarti Bajaj. How much do you explain the mechanics of things? How much time do you give the audience to breathe and process? What do you speed through so that the audience does not<\/em><\/strong> have time to overthink and find loopholes? How much do you trust the viewer to follow you on an ostensibly outlandish story, when they are always a little smarter than Bollywood filmmakers tend to give them credit for? Bajaj has saved and\/or elevated many a movie in her illustrious career (including a certain Imtiaz Ali film about a Rockstar<\/em>). Not that Dobaaraa required too much saving, but it certainly needed an understanding of how much time to spend on the various twisted milestones a journey like this one takes you through. Bajaj is the film\u2019s secret weapon.\n\n

How does little Anay process this future-past time trouble happening to him as a little boy? Simple \u2013 he\u2019s already wise to the possibilities, as a fan of Terminator and Back to the Future<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\nWhere the film manages to distinguish itself in flavour from the original film, Oriol Paulo\u2019s Mirage (2018), is in the little details. How does little Anay process this future-past time trouble happening to him as a little boy? Simple \u2013 he\u2019s already wise to the possibilities, as a fan of Terminator<\/em> and Back to the Future<\/em>; he wears merchandise about them and even references the former multiple times. Touches like that, from Kashyap and writer Nihit Bhave, who has adapted the original script, make sure that the film keeps you on your toes. I\u2019m not sure if the current hostility towards movies out of Bollywood will help Dobaaraa\u2019s case at the ticket windows, but it isn\u2019t often that Hindi cinema gives you a satisfactory thriller that you can recommend. If you\u2019ve watched Netflix\u2019s deep, dark, German thriller Dark<\/em>, this one will feel like Dark-lite \u2013 and that isn\u2019t a bad thing at all.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dobaaraa has plenty of things working work it including Tapsee Pannu\u2019s acting and Anurag Kashyap\u2019s direction. In fact, it possibly outdoes the original.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1287,62,141,11795,11796,2027,11786,11797,1788,5855],"class_list":["post-7563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-anurag-kashyap","tag-arre","tag-bollywood","tag-dobaara","tag-mirage","tag-movie-review","tag-must-read","tag-recommendations","tag-review","tag-tapsee-pannu"],"yoast_head":"\nDobaaraa Review: More than just a faithful adaptation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Dobaaraa has plenty of things working work it including Tapsee Pannu\u2019s acting and Anurag Kashyap\u2019s direction. 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