Haseen Dillruba

Haseen Dillruba
Official release poster
Directed by	Vinil Mathew
Written by	Kanika Dhillon
Produced by	Aanand L. Rai Himanshu Sharma Bhushan Kumar Krishan Kumar
Starring	Taapsee Pannu Vikrant Massey Harshvardhan Rane
Cinematography	Jaya Krishna Gummadi
Edited by	Shweta Venkat Mathew
Music by	Score: Amar Mangrulkar Songs: Amit Trivedi
Production companies	Colour Yellow Productions T-Series Eros International
Distributed by	Netflix[1]
Release date	2 July 2021 (2021-07-02)[2]
Running time	136 minutes[3]
Country	India
Language	Hindi

Haseen Dillruba (transl. Beautiful Beloved) is a 2021 Indian Hindi-language romantic mystery thriller film directed by Vinil Mathew and produced by Aanand L. Rai, Himanshu Sharma, Bhushan Kumar and Krishan Kumar under the banner Colour Yellow Productions, T-Series and Eros International. The film stars Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey and Harshvardhan Rane.^[4][5]

The film premiered on 2 July 2021 on Netflix.^[2] The film also draws inspiration from Roald Dahl's infamous short story, Lamb to the Slaughter. Upon release, Haseen Dilruba received mixed to negative reviews from the film critics.^[6][7]

Plot[]

In the opening Scene, Rani Kashyap who is a housewife is in front of her house feeding the dogs with mutton when suddenly the house explodes killing her husband who's found with a decomposed hand with a tattoo of his wife's name but nothing else. Police suspect Rani and hand over the case to Kishore Rawat. Flashback Reveals that Rishabh Saxena, aka Rishu, resides in Jwalapur along with his mother Lata and father Brijraj. He is looking for a girl for marriage, and his search leads him to Rani Kashyap in Delhi. Rishu falls for Rani instantly. Lata realizes that Rani is not the simple and homely girl that he is looking for. However, Rishu is adamant. The marriage takes place. A nervous Rishu fails to consummate the marriage. Lata, meanwhile, starts chiding Rani for lying that she can cook. One day, Rishu overhears Rani speaking to her mother and her aunty that Rishu is not good in bed. Rishu is hurt and retreats into a shell. Rani gets lonely. One day, Rishu's cousin Neel Tripathi comes to stay with the Saxena's. Neel is dashing and well-built, and Rani gets charmed by him. Neel realizes that Rani is attracted to him, and both begin a fling by sharing a hot passionate kiss. Rani falls in love with Neel to the extent that she begins to learn cooking to feed him his favourite dishes.

One day, Neel expresses the desire to have mutton. Rani, who is a vegetarian, agrees and goes out to buy meat. The same day, she tells Neel that she would like to end the marriage and move in. A commitment-phobic Neel panics and runs away. Rani is hurt, and she blurts the truth to Rishu. Rishu wanted to have a fresh start, but this confession hurts him even more. A few months later, an explosion takes place in the Saxena residence, killing Rishu. Kishore Rawat, the investigating officer, is sure that Rani had killed Rishu as he thought she helped plan the crime when accidental footage came out that Neel was escaping just before the explosion happened by swimming in a river behind the house.

A few months earlier, when Rani blurts the truth to Rishu, his evil side comes out, and he had planned different attempts to hurt Rani. However, things are coming out slowly into the positive side when Rani apologises for her mistake, trying to attempt suicide and slowly they reconcile and become intimate. On one day, Neel visits Rishu's house when Rishu was not home, and he suddenly returned earlier than expected by Rani. Rishu asked Rani to go outside and told them that he could sort out things with Neel. When Rani comes back from the market and feeds the dogs with mutton, an explosion takes place inside their house. She found Rishu's arm with Rani tattoo and she cried for Rishu, ending her story. Kishore Rawat failed to accuse Rani of being the murderer when she cleared the Polygraph even though they knew she tried to fool them with a nail in her shoe to make blood pressure rise for relevant questions indicating innocence, not guilty in the investigation, and she leaves the police station smirking.

It is revealed that when Neel had come to their house that day, he gets in a fight with Rani and threatens to leak her private videos in his WhatsApp groups. Angered by this, Rishu attacks him, and in the ensuing fight, Rani hits Neel's head with a big piece of mutton to save her husband and accidentally kills him. Rishu, not wanting her to go to jail for this, cuts off his hand and places it there to make it look like his body and runs away from the back exit in Neel's clothes. Rani goes to the market and gets the murder weapon chopped into pieces which she later fed to the street dogs. After 5 years inspector understands everything about the plan and how Neel died and he praises the couple's love. But he thought that the husband is also dead because he read that book in which that hero dies in the river and the case is already closed. But in reality, the husband survives and the couple escaped the crime reunite, their love now more eternal than ever.

Cast[]

• Taapsee Pannu as Rani Kashyap^[8]
• Vikrant Massey as Rishabh Saxena “Rishu”
• Harshvardhan Rane as Neel Tripathi^[9]
• Aditya Srivastava as Inspector Kishore Rawat
• Ashish Verma as Afzar
• Yamini Das as Lata
• Daya Shankar Pandey as Brijraj Saxena
• Alka Kaushal as Mrs. Kashyap
• Amit Singh Thakur as Mr. Kashyap
• Puja Sarup as Beena Masi
• Atul Tiwari as Senior Inspector
• Deepesh Jagdish as Navrangi
• Aashiq Hussein as Rastogi
• Alok Chatterjee as Gandhi
• Preeti Singh as Bindiya
• Shyaam Kishore as Misra

Production[]

Principal photography began on 18 January 2020 in Haridwar^[10][11][12] The shooting wrapped up on 29 October 2020 in Mumbai.^[13][14][15]

Reception[]

The film received mixed to negative reviews from the critics.^[16][7][6] On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film currently holds a rating of 58% based on 12 reviews and an average rating of 5.0/10.^[17]

Anna M. M. Vetticad of Firstpost gave Haseen Dillruba a rating of 1/5. She described the film as an "illogical crime saga" and wrote, "Haseen Dillruba is an illogical crime saga wrapped in a clichéd ode to violent, frenzied love". Writing about the characters of the film she further wrote, "I didn’t find myself loving, hating, liking or disliking a single one of its characters". She criticized the writing of the film and the performances of Pannu and Massey by stating, "The pallid writing explains Pannu’s deadpan performance in the film whereas Massey who has been consistently superb in his work so far is only marginally interesting in Haseen Dillruba" but praised Rane's performance and wrote, "Harshvardhan Rane plays the only attention-grabbing character in Haseen Dillruba, and delivers the film’s only memorable performance".^[18] Shubhra Gupta from The Indian Express gave Haseen Dilruba a rating of 2/5 and wrote, "The film has sex, lies and a smutty video, but no frisson; The characters are tropes in this Taapsee Pannu-Vikrant Massey film where each roiling emotion is spelt out, and what you get is blandness". She praised Massey's performance in the film but criticized the performances of Pannu and Rane by stating, "Pannu’s delivery is exactly the same in all her films, only the costumes change; Rane is appropriately heavy-lidded; The only one who tries valiantly to rise, and succeeds in most places is Vikrant Massey".^[19] Anupama Chopra of Film Companion wrote, "Haseen Dillruba is genre-busting – it’s a murder mystery but also a feverish romance with dollops of comedy". She further wrote, "Haseen Dilruba starts with a bang but ends with a whimper; The film becomes implausible and emotionally unconvincing in the third act; The writer of the film Kanika Dhillon loses control of the narrative, which becomes increasingly convoluted".^[20]

Rohan Naahar from Hindustan Times called Haseen Dilruba a "hot mess" and described it as an "illogical" and "ill-conceived" film. Criticizing the performances of the lead actors he wrote, "Pannu’s performance as a bored housewife named Rani is all over the place; In one moment she’s the standard Taapsee Pannu-type — brash but somewhat endearing — and in the next, she goes stunningly off-brand, and literally begs a man to accept her; There’s no middle-ground between these drastically different sides to Rani's personality, it feels as if you’re watching two entirely different people. Massey is a good actor, but severely let down by a script and Rane as Neel isn’t a character, he’s a set of character traits; a manifestation of an inciting incident; and a complete waste of Rane's considerable screen presence".^[21] Mugdha Kapoor Safaya from DNA India gave Haseen Dilruba a rating of 3/5 and described the film as an "not-so-nail-biting whodunit". She praised the performance of Massey and called him the "saving grace" of the film but criticized the performances of Pannu, Rane and the supporting cast by stating, "Massey's good; He outshined Pannu and he's great in most parts but has been let down by a script that does not do justice to his talent. Taapsee on the other hand does not bring anything new to the table; From her dialogue delivery to her expressions, it's like watching her in any of her previous films. The supporting characters and Rane aren't great either; They deserve better".^[22] Srivatsan S from The Hindu wrote, "Haseen Dilruba has the aesthetics of a raunchy B-Grade movie, and has a crime-thriller premise at the centre, resulting in something that looks cluttered and inconsequential".^[23] Tanul Thakur of The Wire called the film “is a collection of obvious tropes and recycled characters” adding that “ Haseen Dillruba is afflicted by familiar flaws tainting mainstream Bollywood. The film wants to reach a certain point, but its journey is devoid of convincing reasons or considered nuance.”^[24]” Rashad, a Palestinian Bollywood writer who runs Bollywood Over Hollywood, gave the film zero stars and called it "a steaming pile of vacuity that is Vinil Mathew's unquestionable sophomore slump." He went on to say that the film is "a waste of good Vikrant Massey."^[25]

Soundtrack[]

The film's music was composed by Amit Trivedi while lyrics written by Varun Grover, Kshitij Patwardhan and Sidhant Mago.

References[]

External links[]

• Haseen Dillruba at IMDb
• Haseen Dillruba at Bollywood Hungama