Once upon a time, in the near past, there was a small little town Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh. STREE– The spirit of a woman haunts it during four nights of a festival. She lures males by calling them out and then whisking them away, leaving behind their clothes. The bodies are never found.
Now, it is o threatening that in Chanderi, men don’t step out. They fear STREE, who is hell-bent on troubling males.
All houses have ‘Stree Kal Anna’ ( Stree come tomorrow) written on their gate. It protects them. So when this ghost / chudail called Stree comes hunting in the house, she spares the ones which have the polite message asking her to come tomorrow.
Vicky (Rajkummar Rao) the highly talented ladies tailor of town does not believe all this. And that’s how the story starts.
It is a simple and enjoyable movie. It has its own pattern and pace that rarely lets you down. Though there are touches and conversation about how women are treated in the society etc. but it is not a social message film. There are enough lose sub-plots, unexplained irrational, illogical frames within the sketchy story that pulls the film down. The sound effects and the lighting of the frames may be mundane and some time below expectations, but it is the dialogues that raise the film experience.
Rajkummar holds the film together with Pankaj Tripathi. There is not much in Rajkumar Rao characterisation. It seems you are seeing yet another version of his earlier acts. Shraddha Kapoor seems lost in the whole plot. The under-rated actor Pankaj Tripathi ’s has once again proved his mantle. He as Rudra, a bookshop owner, full-of-himself as a Know-it-all legend of the town is superb. Abhishek Banerjee and Aparshakti Khurrana play the two friends and not the usual sidekicks. They have their own space. In the limited experimentative framework, they do well to keep you in the story.
If you haven’t watched, find the time and watch it.
You won’t be raving about it, but you won’t waste your money.
At least you would have encouraged such experimentation.
STARCAST : Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee Direction: Amar Kaushik
BLOG/55/2018/movie/7
