Movie Review: Jalsa

Rating: 4 of 5

Star Cast: Manav Kaul, Vidya Balan, Shefali Shah, Rohini Hattangadi, Kani Kusruti

Director: Suresh Triveni

Vidya Balan cries in the first 20 minutes breaking our hearts as things mess up, Shefali Shah makes sure her silences navigate through the mess trying to make sense of it only to give a gut-wrenching climax

The characters are sketched in a way that they don’t belong to a shade in two consecutive scenes, not even entirely grey. Maya (Vidya) is a woman who has framed herself as the epitome of truth and the person who runs to help the needy. But when the time comes she runs away rather than helping. But then she also regrets and terribly breaks down. Ruksana (Shefali) is working for Maya and belongs to a marginalised section. She dreams big for her kids and also knows a bit of English where she doesn’t force the ‘Gully’ accent, so refreshing. When she is bribed to stay quiet about the case she demands for more money but also wants to know who is the culprit. So it is the respective morality which is at test.

The filmmaker with the team blends the writing so much in the real world that within the first few scenes these people become three dimensional for the audience. Mentions of Alia-Ranbir’s relationship or how journalism works now, connect the audience stronger. And after a point makes you forget this is a movie you are watching.

Who would have even thought Shefali Shah playing Vidya Balan’s house help after Human, Dil Dhadakne Do, and Ajeeb Dastaans? But that’s what seasoned actors do, they tap the unimagined and make it their own. Shah as Ruksana uses the silence rather than words. Her anger or dismay comes out in her body language of the activity she is doing. Her gaze is enough to tell you what she is feeling and it doesn’t need words to support.

Vidya Balan on the other hand gets to showcase her impeccable dialogue delivery and the ‘so subtle yet so hard hitting’ emotional dept. There is a breakdown scene she has and how hauntingly beautiful she does that scene. Someone should research on how Vidya doesn’t go far away from her real self to create a character but still makes it look different in every single film.

Kani Kusruti gets to play Rohini, a trainee journalist who is looking for a path breaking story. While she becomes the medium to big revelations, her story doesn’t get the spotlight it deserved. Probably hers was the portion the filmmaker highlighted the plight of the youngsters who come to the city with big dreams, but that deserved some more exploration.

Suresh Triveni is a force to reckon. If this is how he progresses with each film, I hope he directs one each year. The filmmaker not just evolves but entirely transforms his filmmaking style. As said by Balan and Shah in interviews, he had an original self composed background score ready while narrating the movie and you can see that.

Triveni uses musical crescendo to create tension in and around the tale he is narrating. The movie is so synonymous with its BGM that at one point they merge so well that they don’t seem Iike two different aspects. Wait till you catch the violin playing some magical notes under Gaurav Chatterji’s command in the climax.