Dobaaraa

Director: Anurag Kashyap

Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Rahul Bhat

Rating: ***

Of course, there is such a thing as an auteur, however collective a medium the movies may be—the director directs all the departments after all. In that respect, this is the least likely among what we’ve come to expect of an ‘Anurag Kashyap film’. By which we assume a film aiming for the darkest side of the moon. Or at least packed with characters oscillating between disturbing extremes. Or somehow or the other obsessed with something/someone.

Okay, the latter bit holds true here too. But I don’t know if it’s the fact that this is Kashyap’s first screen adaptation of an existing movie—Oriol Paulo’s Mirage (2018)—there isn’t an obvious political statement, either. Something he managed to brilliantly weave into his last release, the surreal drama Choked (2020).