Saturday, May 1, 2010

Apartment


Film: Apartment
Cast: Neetu Chandra, Tanushree Dutta, Rohit Roy, Anupam Kher
Genre: Thriller
Direction: Jagmohan Mundhra
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes
Critic's Rating:***



Synopsis : Tanushree Dutta needs a paying guest in her new apartment after she fights with boyfriend, Rohit Roy and throws him out. Enter Neetu Chandra, the small town girl in a crumpled salwar kameez who seems to be a dream come true. She cooks the food, cleans the dishes and takes care of `didi' Dutta with utmost devotion. But only until she's sure that didi is hers and hers alone. As soon as she finds Tanushree rebonding with her boyfriend, her eyes begin to flash ominously....

Movie Review: Single White Female, anyone? Ok, so this one's another of those sundry lifts from Hollywood films, repackaged as desi kitsch. But what's there to complain about? Don't we see it happening so often? So let's just try to see if Apartment deserves a dekko or not.

It does. Primarily because of Neetu Chandra. The Garam Masala girl is sure emerging as a fine actor after a dispensable debut act as a routine song-dance dish. After her Traffic-stopping act, came Oye Lucky...Not forgetting her cameo in Rann which managed to standout despite the fact she had to remain a silent bystander for most of the film. Here, in Apartment she ends up as the mainstay, as she plays the edgy, unpredictable tenant, Neha who not only enters Tanushree Dutta's apartment but tries to take up her entire life. Blame it on her orphanage upbringing, but this limpid-eyed girl with the disarming smile is actually a hell cat who doesn't blink before unleashing her venom. And suddenly, when you think she needs handcuffs, she turns into the vulnerable waif all over again. Don't really know what to do with her, do we, except pay attention to her antics that transform this run-of-the-mill thriller into watchable fare. Quite a bravura act indeed, specially since she gets little help from a poker-faced Tanushree Dutta and a routine-act Rohit Roy. Even Anupam Kher spends most of his screen time with his pet cat....

End verdict? Apartment's a decent watch provided you promise not to watch Bridget Fonda and Jennifer Jason Leigh do the catfight in Single White Female.


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