What a superbly enacted drama about the entangled relationships between the personalities of the Indian film world, where everyone is out to use each other to climb the proverbial unsteady ladder to success.
This is the first Hindi film I have seen that has honestly and beautifully presented the difficult subject of paranoid schizophrenia in cinematic form. Kanagana Ranaut is outstanding as the female protagonist, Sana Azeem, who plays a top actress who has made a Faustian pact in order to achieve fame and success. Unfortunately for her, it's her Svengali -like manager and partner, played with thorough evil intent by an actor I do not recognise, who has made her the way she is. She is very unhappy and takes to drink with gusto. Every part of her body and mind is dictated by media sponsors, who decide all aspects of her life.
Into this mix appear a struggling director and his partner, who sees their main chance in Sana a ticket ride to success. Siney Ahuja, who plays Aditya, a pretentious director, is also outstanding. He is a superb foil to Sana, where the former starts out as disreputable, but charming character, but then slowly falls in love with the beautiful Sana when he sees her vulnerability.
Sana's frequent bouts of hallucinatory attacks where she sees a female alter ego, an absolutely evil bitch, who pursues her relentlessly strains her relationship with all the men in her life. We see the back story of how she became what is today, where her condition is diagnosed as schizophrenia. No one but Aditya understands her predicament. As a boy he witnessed his own father, afflicted with mental illness, being subjected to electric shocks to cure his condition.
When Sana herself was sent to a psychiatric ward to be given electric shocks, Aditya kidnaps her and takes to a safe refuge in the countryside, where he helps her to recuperate. It is not easy as her condition goes through a see-saw of emotions one day, she's well, then the next day she's has recurring attacks of the imaginary female tormentor.
The scenes where Sana enacts her schizoid episodes are superbly handled and absolutely terrifying. Having a member of my own family afflicted with schizophrenia, I know how realistic the scenes are. I am not surprised that Kangana found it difficult to portray, but portray she does. She veers from normality to madness with such consummate ease that it was difficult to tell where the borderline between sanity and madness began or ended. Her scenes were spooky and intense, and so was the imaginary character in her mind, played by unknown actress whose terrifying visage will remain in viewer's mind long after he/she has left the cinema theatre.
Shiny's transformation from sleazy director to sensitive lover was remarkable and natural. He is an actor worth watching out for.
I would recommend this movie to all who are interested in excellent performances, direction, and soundtrack. An outstanding and sensitive screenplay from Mahesh Bhatt clearly he has delved deeply into his own life to write this tale. A film that is, in turns, entertaining, disturbing, moving and sensitively portrayed. A must-see for aficionados of cinema.
