My Birthday Song Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2018 | Drama, Thriller
Critics:
Is it is guilt for the one sexual encounter that keeps Rajeev Kaul awake or has he really killed the girl? The film is a psychological thriller which is rather interesting, but feels dragged despite its short running time of 95 minutes. Sanjay Suri looks traumatised enough as Rajeev Kaul but is that enough? This film has a decent supporting cast but needed a huge pay-off at the end. So much thrill for so little an end...
Jan 19, 2018 By Manisha Lakhe


First time director Samir Soni makes an interesting point with this psychological thriller: Is Rajeev Kaul's guilt about a passionate encounter with a stranger driving him crazy? Or has he really not done anything and is stressing out for no reason at all?


It's Rajeev's 40th birthday and the weather is odd. It's raining in December. And Rajeev is feeling like a man out of place at his own party. The problem here is that there's no explanation given why. We have to assume. And if these are not his friends, why has his wife Ritu invited them? The guests at the party say inane things (expositions, really) like, 'He made so much money in advertising that he bought this farmhouse.'


They introduce the seductress (Nora Fatehi) as, 'My sister's friend'. Who brings their sister's friend to a party? It just sounds wrong in Hindi on many levels.


The Groundhog Day idea of repeating the events again and again in order to make us begin to believe there is a possibility that something big is about to happen. We get to see plenty of weird: The appearance of Pitobash in odd situations makes us believe that is Pitobash actually appeared in your life (even as a friend), then there's something seriously wrong with it. The other thing about this repetition of events, we get to see Sanjay Suri drive and drive and drive and drive his car. In inadvertent lighter moment as an audience, you begin to feel like the harassed Delhi commuter, but the drive scenes do nothing to push the story forward. Neither does he have any epiphany about his situation. It's just driving around.


The idea that the girl seems to meet the same end, no matter what should have been shown more instead of him driving again and again. That would give us a deeper concept of 'Karma' and how 'debts need to be paid' that the film is attempting to tell. But the filmmaker adds inane things like Rajeev suspecting his wife of infidelity because he has cheated himself seems really trite. And the film ends rather tamely even though it could have been a powerful and emotional payoff.


It's a great attempt. But the film had a long way to go on script level before it became awesome. The music is unusual and different from the elevator music that cinema today is churning out by the heap.

Manisha Lakhe

   

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