Andhadhun movie review rating: Three and half stars out of fiveÂ
black humourÂ
(noun)
a humorous way of looking at or treatingÂ
something that is serious or sad
How far would you go to be a great artist?
A young Pune-based blind piano player, Akash (Ayushmann Khurrana) has a lot going for him. He lands up a stint at a popular restaurant, makes a girlfriend Sophie (Radhika Apte), and is hired by former actor Pramod Sinha (Anil Dhawan) for a private piano session at his residence to surprise Sinha’s wife, Simi (Tabu) on their wedding anniversary.
This is where director Sriram Raghavan seamlessly glides into dark comedy thriller mode and plays some joyful jazz notes, right up to the end credits.
Admittedly taking its concept idea from the 2010 French short film L’Accordeur (The Piano Tuner), Raghavan expands the short film’s abrupt, “what happened next?” ending to many layers of humour, suspense and endless fascination.
Murder as black comedyÂ
In the short film L’Accordeur (The Piano Tuner), the inspiration got Andhadhun, the ending of the 13-minute tale is open-ended. It is tantalizing, for we know that the piano player is in deep trouble, but we never know if he makes out of it or not. Raghavan gives us the ending in his version, while cleverly leaving the audience guessing on what did actually occur.
So, while we are at it, what are your favourite black comedies? For us cinephiles the craziest black comedy ever has to be the movie based on the Joseph Heller novel – Catch-22 (1970). A wicket World War II satire if there was one, the phrase Catch-22 is stuff of legend.
A pilot pretends to be mentally unstable to stay at hospital and survive the war. But the pilot’s superior explains that even mental health issues can’t be justification to not be part of the war. For, as the crazy logic goes, a sane pilot is suitable to fly more missions, and if he gets mentally sick, he is certified to not fly anymore. But if a pilot does not want to fly more missions and expresses so, that means he is sane and will be eligible to participate in more missions! That is a Catch-22!
A similar situation confronts our hero in Andhadhun. Spoiler alert. He pretends to be blind to boost his career as a piano player. But when he ends up witnessing a dead body while playing at a client’s house, he can or cannot confess to having seen the body. Reporting the incident to the police would reveal that he had been pretending to be a blind man, and thus be accused of cheating. Not revealing the truth and continuing to play ‘blind’ brings other complications to his life – When he witnesses an actual murder occurring.
There are several other twists and turns that occur, leading to a tense climax featuring a rabbit. This is where various theories on the Andhadhun ending have erupted and added to the movie’s rewatch interest.
Director’s cut
Andhadhun is Sriram Raghavan doing what he does best, with the noir echoes of his previous works: Johnny Gaddaar (2007) and Badlapur (2015). Hindi film nostalgia rules, loving cuts from Pune still make for great story background. The editing is impressive, and as another lead protagonist loses his soul, Raghavan keeps it a lot more fun and stylish here. This is more of a freewheeling outing with a The Usual Suspects-like ending, but without any clarity of what actually occurred in the climax involving the rabbit.
Andhadhun is Sriram Raghavan doing what he does best, with the noir echoes of his previous works: Johnny Gaddaar (2007) and Badlapur (2015). Hindi film nostalgia rules, loving cuts from Pune still make for great story background. The editing is impressive, and as another lead protagonist loses his soul, Raghavan keeps it a lot more fun and stylish here. This is more of a freewheeling outing with a The Usual Suspects-like ending, but without any clarity of what actually occurred in the climax involving the rabbit.
Layered with great ensemble cast performances, good Amit Trivedi music (Daniel B. George’s lovely piano-based background score), Andhadhun is a slick dark comedy thriller fun, worth watching and returning to.
