Haseen Dillruba – Of Deliciously Sadistic Characters

Directed by Vinil Mathew, Haseen Dillruba is the newest romantic thriller in town. It’s the story of Rani who loves reading pulp fictions by one Dinesh Pandit and dreams of a life & love as exciting as in those stories. Unfortunately she is married to Rishu, a small town engineer whose hobby is homeopathy i.e. yawn max. While Rishu tries hard to win her heart, Rani finds herself attracted to his hunky, spunky cousin Neel . The consequences of this love triangle is what forms the rest of the story where Rani is accused of murdering her husband.

Haseen Dillruba is an engaging, even if predictable for some viewers, watch with all three characters written to be beyond black and white. In fact, there is a streak of sadism in all three of them which will definitely divide the viewers. Personally I rather enjoyed the debatable morality & twisted nature of these characters. Sure it outraged me at times & made me uncomfortable but I am of the opinion that films & film characters cannot have the responsibility of always being morally upright because simply put that would make the medium extremely unidimensional & boring. After all the medium of films and entertainment is based on navrasa for a reason. In a film like this one, these characters are presented as twisted slice of life without any attempt made to push them as inspirational and that works just fine.

Anyway coming back to the story & its treatment, Haseen Dillruba presents interesting characters including the ensemble cast (props to Yamini Das who plays Rishu’s overbearing mother Lata & finds herself constantly at odds with Rani, the antithesis of her ideal bahu) but there are glaring loopholes that take away from the film. From missing pieces of evidence to people acting out of character like Lata being sympathetic to Rani after she is accused of murdering Rishu, even though their relations had improved, to why the police is so sure its a murder & have zeroed in on Rani. It’s almost like the film set up all these interesting pieces of a puzzle and then forgot about them as the story unfolded. Kanika Dhillon’s writing & dialogues exhibit good work but finer detailing is sadly missing.

Coming to performances, Harshvardhan Rane as Neel is every bit hunky, naughty, irreverent & dare I say kameena as is expected of such a character while Taapsee is sincere as Rani and there are scenes when she absolutely shines, like in the car sequence. However there are times when Rani, Anu (her character from Thappad) and Rumi (Manmariziyaan) seem similar and that should be a matter of concern for an actor with her potential. The film however belongs to Vikrant Massey who is deliciously multidimensional as the soft spoken Rishu who will entice & repel you all at the same time. Aditya Srivastava as Inspector Kishore is good but underused.

To conclude, the film is an engaging watch even if predictable, specially for avid viewers & readers of this genre, & with large & small loopholes.

PS – A fantastic album, definitely worth streaming!

👩🏾‍💻 – Netflix

Direction – Vinil Mathew

Cast – Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Harshvardhan Rane, Aditya Srivastava