Haseen Dillruba Review: The Trailers Impressed More Than The Film

Haseen Dillruba Review: A wife is incriminated for her husband’s gruesome murder. She also had a lover who is now missing. A blast in the house, a body burnt beyond recognition except for a hand. The entire city has one question did she kill her husband? A police officer who is hell-bent on proving the wife guilty. But “har kahani ke na bahut pahulu hote hai farak sirf yeh hai ki kahani suna kaun raha hai,”says Rani Kashyap the protagonist of the film. So, this is my side of the story.

Haseen Dillruba introduces us to free-spirited Delhi girl Rani who is an avid fan of Hindi pulp fiction writer Dinesh Pandit. She does not shy away from expressing her sexuality or her desires. Our hero Rishu aka Rishabh Saxena falls head over heels in love with her at first sight. But Rani feels short-changed in her matrimonial home in the town of Jwalapur. She desperately makes efforts at seducing her own husband, but they are two people who are poles apart in terms of their personalities and what they want from their partners. Enters Neel, her husband’s cousin, and everything Rani wants her man to be. Infidelity is a difficult thing to portray especially in a society that is so patriarchal like ours, and dialogues like “Paagalpan ki haad se na guzare who pyaar hi kaisa,” are problematic to say the least.

Haseen Dillruba Poster featuring Taapsee Pannu, Harshvardhan Rane And Vikrant Massey

The tepid film is backed by strong performers. Rani telling her mother-in-law that she doesn’t know how to make pakodras will have you rooting for Taapsee Pannu. Vikrant Massey is as usual amazing with his measured yet impactful acting. Harshvardhan Rane is convincing as Neel. While Massey’s transformation as a scorned man is believable, the blood and gore of the second half are absolutely disjointed from the first half.

Haseen Dillruba thrills you; it makes you laugh, it takes you on a whodunit journey, it does raise few pertinent questions on society. First, the idea of an arranged marriage and how even though after certain age men and women are pushed to get married by their families there is no conversation on sexual desires even among partners. And second, even though it has dialogues like “amar prem wohi hai jisme khoon ki halki halki cheeten hoon,” is it possible to look beyond infidelity and give love a second chance? Does it answer any of these questions? Well, that is for you to watch and decide.

The film has pulp fiction at its core, like the books you read on a train journey picked up from a platform at the beginning of the journey. You can sit and binge-watch perhaps on a flight also but it is not something that will make you think about the various questions it tries to raise.

Watch our conversation with Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey:

The views expressed are the author's own.