Much of Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video's enjoyment comes from the carefully picked star cast who do a pretty good job, observes Mayur Sanap.
Imagine losing everything dear to you: Your job, reputation, love and the trust of your partner and family. To being suddenly deprived of things for no mistake of yours can be anyone's worst nightmare.
How do you survive the blow?
This is the basic premise of Director Mikhil Musale's suggestively titled Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video.
The story revolves around the disappearance of a Pune-based school-teacher Sajini Shinde (Radhika Madan), who is presumed dead in an alleged suicide attempt. The trigger is a leaked video of her dancing heedlessly which gets viral without her consent. This invites wrath of Sajini's school management and people dear to her, who take no time to shun her.
As Sajini goes missing, social media activists fuel up the chaos with hoardings of #JusticeForSajini dotting the city, while the newspapers carry sensational front-page headlines like: 'Pune Teacher Goes Raunchy'.
Enters Bela Barud (Nimrat Kaur), a hard-headed investigator, who is assigned to probe this headline-grabbing case. As she delves deep, she digs out multiple suspects related to the victim and starts to interrogate them.
The suspects include Sajini's possessive fiancé (Sohum Majumdar), her chauvinist father (Subodh Bhave), her guileful school principal (Bhagyashree), and her glib colleague who unknowingly triggers the video controversy (Shruti Vyas).
Musale, who co-wrote the script with Parinda Joshi, designs a maze-like plot which shows flashes of lofty ideas but it all crumbles down due to convoluted series of twists and turns that only fitfully work.
The film is symptomatic of what's often happens in the age of social media and how we rely on external validation to feel good about ourselves. It also tries to explore gender roles and stereotypes, classism, male chauvinism and toxic relationships. This would have been a very effective social commentary if the writing was sharper. But despite its vivid setting, the effort gets lost in execution because there is no binding force for a cohesive whole.
The film moves from event to event without concentrating on any one specific point until it reaches an underwhelming climatic twist, which is also implausible. Even the final voice-over telling us the moral of the story to the effect of how our life is precious, feels haphazardly placed just to add last minute poignancy to the actual episode.
Much of the film's enjoyment comes from the carefully picked star cast who do a pretty good job.
Leading the cast is Nimrat Kaur who is eminently watchable as the sharp and nimble-witted investigator. When a suspect tries to trick her into his sob story with the allegory of 'five stages of grief', she slyly gives back, 'You should know what third degree police torture is.'
Much like her character in Dasvi, there is authority in her body language and voice, and the actor is clearly having a ball playing this whip-smart cop.
Radhika Madan tries to make the most of her sketchily written character but we don't really get a sense of the real personality beneath her rebellious and chirpy Sajini. Neither do we understand what makes an independent woman like her turn so flimsy and gullible in a relationship.
The film is dotted with tremendous talent from the Marathi film industry but the writing doesn't do justice to their genius. Yet, Subodh Bhave leaves an impact as despicable patriarch. His redemptive arc, however, is too abrupt and doesn't make much sense.
The same goes for Sneha Raikar's long-suffering wife whose silent rebellion towards the end barely registers.
Chinmay Mandlekar, as the meek sub-inspector, is extremely good in a canteen scene that plays out between him and Nimrat, as he erroneously sends her a text with a berating remark. This breaks the ice between the two and leads to their friendship.
It is, however, Soham Majumdar who effortlessly chews up the scene as Sajini's manipulative and toxic fiancé. He haughtily talks about doing the bare minimum by bringing sanitary pads for his partner and in a moment of rage, doesn't blink to chide her with 'teri jaisi ladki.' Watch him in a Gone Girl-esque TV interview scene where he does a hypocritical show of sorrow over his missing partner. There is an air of comedy about his character, and the actor leaves a stellar impression.
Despite its interesting ideas and a bright cast, Sajini Shinde Ka Viral Video feels like a missed opportunity, which could have been a compelling watch.
Better to leave this video at buffering.
