The Tenant (2023) :
Movie Review -
Shamita Shetty returns to the silver screen after 16 years in a full-fledged role in Sushrut Jain's The Tenant. The comeback is very much welcome, but the film isn't. The Tenant is not a typical Bollywood drama, which should have been a good thing for an art cinema lover like me, but here it's contrary. I think it should have been a typical Bollywood drama, then I would have had more patience to tolerate it. This is not a bad film; this is boredom with no motive, and it also makes you forget your motive as a viewer. If I had to pay the rent for this one, I'd like a refund with interest.
The Tenant is about a glamorous urban girl, Meera (Shamita Shetty), who shifts into a formal society. A 13-year-old boy, Bharat (Rudraksha Jaiswal), finds her attractive and becomes genuinely friends with her. Naturally, she becomes a subject of gossip amongst men, women, and boys in society. Some of them even had vulgar thoughts about her due to her appearance, and the talks become ugly when one of the horrible events from her past gets leaked. Bharat, who knows the secret, still has a kind heart for her, while others start defaming her. Will she be able to fight society and stand with pride? The Tenant will provide you with all the answers, but how accurate they are and how much sense they make is up to you.
The reason to call The Tenant a boring film is its screenplay. There is nothing interesting, nothing new, and nothing captivating in the entire narrative. You know what's gonna happen right from the first 10-15 minutes. It's so predictable and tedious. How can one finalise this script and screenplay in the first place? A teenage boy would talk like an adolescent, immature fella, but suddenly he would have enough maturity to say that this world is a dangerous place to live. How? A boy who doesn't even understand the meaning of love will have philosophical thoughts about the same (after seeing her physical beauty), and he is kiddish enough to reveal the girl's secret to an unkind guy!? I couldn't really understand what kind of pride Meera actually had. For posing bare? That too, while someone was filming it. Damn freak. The climax submits to nothing, not even an ounce compared to what Hollywood has delivered with such tenant- or apartment-themed films almost 6 and 7 decades ago.
It's good to see Shamita Shetty back in a feature film after a long gap. I liked her in "Cash" (2007) and was "mind-blown" seeing her, even though I was in my teenage then, just like Bharat here, and the film was crap. Here, she comes back stronger. Maybe the strongest she could have because the character demanded so. Her accent is clean (you won't even need subtitles), her looks are attractive, and her attitude is a bit bold but true to her own senses. Rudraksh reminded me of my teenage years, minus the perversity and rudeness. He does a fine job, but it would have looked more real with some natural fumbles. Atul Srivastava, Divya Jagdale, Swanand Kirkire, Sheeba Chaddha, Manish Anand, Harsh Mayar, Akshat Singh, Aniruddha Mohala, and others have small roles, and they have done a decent job.
The Tenant is more like an art film, but it doesn't behave like one. It lacks intelligence and how. Nobody is to blame but the on-paper team and the director, which happens to be the same person. Sushrut Jain made a Hinglish film with 75-80% dialogue in English, including all vulgar and abusive words. Sadly, we live in a country and our CBFC is such that using abusive words in Hindi is unacceptable, but using offensive words in the English language isn't offensive at all. The Tenant takes full advantage of it by using words beginning with "A", "B," "F" and "S". What's the actual motive behind it or the entire film? That's what I'd like to ask the creator. Hopefully, he will have an answer for people who live such lives, and they might be interested too. I'm not the one, and I'm not sorry about it. People don't even watch proper Hindi films nowadays; then who will watch this Hi-English film, and that too in a cinema hall, by spending money? Sushrut should better answer this than explain the motive of the film, and then, I guess, he will get a few tenants of his own.
RATING - 4/10*
