REVIEW: Kay Kay's Via Darjeeling

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Parvin Dabas, Vinay Pathak, Sandhya Mridul, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh and Prashant Narayanan

Director: Arindam Nandy

To make an open-ended film that provokes thought, forced intellectualism is not necessary. That is exactly what we thought during the second half of this Kay Kay Menon starrer film.

In spite of some strong performances, the movie could have been much better than what it is. For one, it could have considered the viewer as an intelligent being. To show the similarity of the plot with Rashomon, Rajat Kapoor did not actually need to pick up a DVD of the film and hold it in his hands for over a minute. The audience could have figured that out themselves. And if not, what's the harm? Couldn't the plot have held itself without the similarity with the masterpiece?

SEE: Stills from the film

So what is the plot after all?

Kay Kay Menon (Ankur) and Sonali Kulkarni (Rimli) are a newly wedded couple on their honeymoon in Darjeeling when Ankur disappears. The police are summoned and inspector Robin Dutt (Vinay Pathak) comes to investigate the case. A visibly distraught Rimli tells him about the suspects – a driver who'd fought with her husband and a man who'd been following her throughout their trip.

Cut to a room full of friends apparently in Calcutta. We have to accept it is Calcutta only because the characters have Bengali names and some phrases in the language are thrown in their conversation.

The story is narrated by the inspector who's now transferred to Calcutta to the group of friends gathered around a table. There's Rajat Kapoor, a newspaper editor, his wife played by Simone Singh; a successful television actress Mallika played by Sandhya Mridul and Prashant Narayanan (Kaushik), an aspiring filmmaker who's recently come back from NY.

This particular group of friends who have their own issues in life start thinking about a possible ending to the mysterious disappearance of Ankur in Darjeeling months back. And then is when the movie starts getting a little pretentious.

SEE: More stills

The logic vanishes midway

The first two possible narratives presented by Rajat Kapoor and Simone Singh respectively, are logical and when related to the characters who narrate it, makes a lot of sense. The insecurities and anxieties of the editor and his wife take form in the stories they narrate. While Rajat Kapoor condemns the wife, Simone Singh's version makes the husband the villain.

Somehow in the course of their 'adda'-a Bengali concept of friends gathering and chatting, the relationships between the friends also come to the fore. The hidden desires and hatred become prominent. And then suddenly it is all downhill from here.

NEXT: Pretentious...oh very