[amazon_link id=”B00TJG07CW” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]
[/amazon_link]Rating : Good (4/5)
Genre : Thriller
Year : 2014
Running time : 2 hours 8 minutes
Director : Anurag Kashyap
Cast : Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Surveen Chawla, Rahul Bhat, Vineet Singh, Girish Kulkarni
Kidwise Rating: A
Ugly is said to be based on true events and is centered around the disappearance of a 10 year old girl. In the film, the girl, Kali, is the daughter of aspiring actor Rahul Varshney (Bhat), and Shalini Bose (Kolhapure), who are now divorced. So she lives with her police inspector step-father Shoumik Bose (Roy). Kali’s disappearance causes her mother great distress. Her father is frantic, and her step-father, to whom the case comes, is steely in his resolve to find her.
Ugly is a typical Anurag Kashyap film. It doesn’t feature big-name actors (Ronit Roy is the best known here), but it is well-directed, strong on story and character development. Kali’s disappearance occurs early-on in the film. From then on, it is a story of suspicion and the real-time vagaries of finding a missing person in Mumbai. Ugly also shines a light on systemic apathy and corruption endemic in the governmental bureaucracy.
Ugly’s characters bring to mind a nest of snakes. Each one, although affected by Kali’s disappearance, seems to have ulterior motives. There are her parents – Shalini and Rahul who’ve not been able to make their marriage work despite being college sweethearts. There is Shoumik, a hard, controlling man, who has a long-standing enmity with Rahul. Rahul’s good friend Chaitanya owes people money. Shalini’s dead-beat, perpetually-broke brother pings her for a loan to keep himself afloat. And there are others …
A lot of the credit for this film goes to the fantastic cast of characters. Ronit Roy does very well as Police Inspector Shoumik Bose. But then, he seems to carry off these hard, unsmiling, unforgiving characters off so well; his character in Udaan was almost a reprise of this one. We haven’t see much of Tejaswini Kolhapure commercially, although she has appeared in several indie-type shorts. She was also in Kashyap’s film Paanch, which never saw the light of day. Similarly, you might not have heard of Vineet Singh, although you might have seen this accomplished actor in Murabba, a lovely short story from Bombay Talkies.
Ugly is a spare, fast-paced, tightly-made drama. No naach-gana, no frivolous fripperies. Highly recommended. There is also a short prolog to Ugly, called “Kali-Katha”, available on Youtube.
Kidwise: Lots of profanity. Some violence, some sexual situations and adult humor. Unsuitable for children.
