Dobaaraa Movie Review: Taapsee Pannu Lends Unwritten Emotional Depth To Anurag Kashyap Thriller

For a film like 'Dobaaraa', you have to have a kind of mathematical exactitude on how to cut between timelines, set a pace, interlace the story with music, & Anurag Kashyap manages to do exactly that.

New Delhi: 'Dobaaraa' starring Taapsee Pannu and Pavail Gulati has a slow-with-intense-burn-feel thriller charm of the pre-internet, mobile phone era of the 90s. This Anurag Kashyap directorial opens with a sense of foreboding with classic thunderstorm sounds, dismal grey colour palette, and a young boy about to witness a domestic fight turn fatal for one of the participants. The X factor being that within this milieu, there is a TV set with a video recorder that works like a gateway into the past, present, future every time a geomagnetic storm hits Hinjawadi in Pune.

The opening sequence of 'Dobaaraa' ends on a closeup of the boy's watch which clocks 2:12 AM as his mangled body lies under a fire brigade. The title card of the film flashes with thunderstorm sounds, a typical old Hindi film feel to it and we are introduced to the present day Hinjawadi which is also about to witness a massive geomagnetic storm.

Taapsee is introduced as a surgeon, Anatara Vashishth who along with her husband have recently moved to a new house in Hinjawadi with their 6-year-old daughter Avanti. This house happens to be the same where the young boy( Anay) once lived in 1996.

The first 20 minutes of the film flow at an exceptional pace, frame by frame revealing a new connection, a new storyline and something characteristic about the plot, its characters and the setting of 'Dobaaraa'. Even with a generous amount of information that the audience is fed, the pace of the film is upbeat with the genre without over or underdoing it.

With a background score which will remind you of a 90's horror series like 'Aahat', the music is very suggestive and a great narrative device that propels action forward, anticipates it and highlights a rather simple domestic small-town plot into an edge-of-a-seat-thriller.

Half an hour into 'Dobaaraa', it looks like we are seeing Taapsee( Antara) in a double role only to realize that she has gone back in the past to undo the death of Anay in 1996 and thus her whole life has fallen apart.

This Anatara achieves with the help of a TV set in her new house, to communicate with Anay, who died many years ago and lived in the same house. Antara warns him not to go to their neighbour's house and thus helps by undoing his death which would have happened if he stepped out of the house and went to his neighbour’s where a husband-wife had a violent fight.

Suddenly, as audiences, you are left open to solve a plot like a whodunnit of sorts with Taapsee as she unravels the past-present to find her real self.

Just when this self-investigation begins to happen as Taapsee looks for her long hair, nose ring, a missing daughter now that she has changed the events of Anay's past; Pavail Gulati as investigating officer Anand is so organically weaved and revealed as a character, that it's worth mentioning.

As Pavail helps Taapsee in her investigation, interesting use of images through flashbacks, closeups on hands and embraces to flesh out a past, which Antara avoids to not get so muddled up in her already nerve-wracking brain is great.

Zooming out of memory lanes, interesting camera movements and palette which is warm toned in the past and grey and dismal in Antara-Anay timelines to show a similarity in character arch is again a good narrative differentiator and establisher.

What is also interesting about Hinjawadi, like most of Anurag's films, is its treatment of a character in the film. The subarb in Pune which witnesses a murder and is known for its' weather, has parallel universe timelines running back and forth, and yet deeply rooted in it's history, Hinjawadi with thunderstorms and an announcer on radio listing out the effects of a geo-magnetic storm on land and man becomes a full-blown entity in itself.

An hour into 'Dobaaraa', as two parallel timelines that of Anay in 1996 and Antara in 2021 work out, it does become quite clear what the film is about.

The dots/hints are all there in the form of Raja Ghosh( Saswata Chatterjee), a great performance, Sheila Aunty ( Nidhi Singh), a TV, a book and like readers of a mystery novel you are intent on discovering the cause of events with Antara as the lead investigator.

'Dobaaraa' closes for interval at the most unlikely places, seemingly challenging our very understanding of a pre and post interval film. But, at this point, it also feels like Anurag Kashyap, despite having a well-knit plot with no extra minutes on hand, does tend to let the plot take its own shape as we follow Anay go to inordinate lengths to unravel the mystery of Raja Ghosh. A little lost in a murder-mystery psychological thriller, one can say.

The post-interval film begins with a song, another change in convention to have in this kind of thriller, as Antara continues to find hints to return to her version of reality.

As two parallel timelines of two different years (1996 and 2021) happen, gradual unfolding of motives is revealed and we find another twist in the Anand( Pavail Gulati) character who also happens to be Anay. 

Interesting use of props like a local best-selling book 'Dobaaraa' help make the plot clearer and further the narrative. Anay's friend Abhishek and his bookshop in one universe and Abhishek as pilot in another time are also worth mentioning.

In terms of actor's performance, both Taapsee and Pavail are best suited for their parts. Taapsee brings an unwritten emotional depth to Antara and her confusion, urgency make the realistic portrayal of her character even more spot on. Pavail's character, on one hand, does not look like it's been chalked out so well despite his attempt at an earnest performance.

Towards the closing 15 minutes of the film, when the plot has been completely revealed and who-what-why-how explained, we see Antara taking her life into her own hands, much like god's own hands to chart the course of her life, a kind of power which only comes after you have seen all plausible 'what if' scenarios.

'Dobaaraa' closes as Antara, who had been avoiding physical contact in the form of embraces and hand touches, shakes hands with Anand/Anay and revists all the memories from her parallel universe with him to now establish a new connection with him. Why one mentions this is to reassert the rather optimist  hope of having to decide your own 'right' course of life after having experienced the alternatives in another reality; like godly freedom or something like it.

For a film like 'Dobaaraa', you have to have a kind of mathematical exactitude on how to cut between timelines, set a standard pace, keep the plot relatable, interlace the story with music, and Anurag Kashyap manages to do exactly that. 

PS: 'Dobaaraa' also happens to be the Hindi remake of the Spanish thriller 'Mirage' which was released in 2018. Mentioning the remake here is intentional so as to not take the light and credit from a filmmaker's work who has attempted to re-interpret the story through his lens while in another way, many would ask, why the remake in the first place?