Tag Archives: 3 Stars

Movie Review: The Mehta Boys (2025)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Boman Irani makes his directorial debut with the heartfelt family drama The Mehta Boys. The story doesn’t quite support the moral conclusion the film reaches, but it’s still a meaningful movie.

Irani — who co-wrote the film with Birdman co-writer Alexander Dinelaris — stars as Shiv Mehta. At 71 years old and newly widowed, he faces the prospect of leaving his childhood home and moving in with his daughter Anu (Puja Sarup) in Tampa, Florida. Shiv’s not an easygoing guy during the best of circumstances, but these are a lot of big changes all at once.

Flight issues in Mumbai force Anu to fly home alone and for Shiv to spend a couple of days bunking with his estranged son, Amay (Avinash Tiwary). Amay’s dilapidated apartment has a great view but plenty of leaks. Shiv can’t understand why Amay left home just to live in a rundown place, and he’s not shy of voicing that opinion.

Shiv’s unrelenting criticism has left Amay bereft of confidence, which affects him personally and professionally. He’s an architect at a prestigious firm, but he’s too timid to share his own opinions and designs. Even Amay’s boss is starting to wonder why they pay him.

This unplanned co-habitation brings out the worst in Amay and Shiv. Dad acts like a know-it-all, while son treats his father like he’s senile. Amay’s kind girlfriend Zara (Shreya Chaudhry) sees the dysfunctional dynamic first-hand and is not impressed.

The Mehta Boys does a lovely job depicting just how complicated the relationships between parents and their adult children can be, clouded as they are by entrenched habits and festering resentment. No one in the film is on their best behavior. While the characters are not exactly sympathetic, they are very relatable, and Irani and Tiwary capture that in their performances.

There’s a tendency in a lot of stories about this relationship dynamic that frame negative parenting tactics as inherently borne of love, and The Mehta Boys takes that approach as well. Based on what is shown in the film, I’m not sure that’s a fair conclusion to draw from Shiv’s constant doubting of Amay’s competence and judgment. It looks more like ego and pride on Shiv’s part, mixed with his own insecurities. His “never apologize” ethos doesn’t leave much room for caring about other’s feelings.

It’s okay to admit that sometimes parents raise their kids by instincts learned in their own dysfunctional homes, or taught by parents living under very different financial circumstances. Add to that the inflexibility of thought that sometimes comes with age, and you wind up with hurtful behaviors done habitually, without any real thought behind them at all.

In those circumstances, maybe the lesson Amay needs to learn is that his Shiv’s distrust is not based on an accurate assessment of Amay’s abilities. He’s put in the work to become a good architect at a firm that acknowledges his skills. If his dad doesn’t get that, that’s on him.

I’m forgiving of the hopeful conclusion Irani and Dinelaris reach in The Mehta Boys if only because we all want to believe it’s true, especially audiences looking for something uplifting. Irani is a good filmmaker, so here’s hoping he’s got more stories in him.

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Movie Review: Anuja (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Two sisters in Delhi face a difficult choice when one of them is offered a potential way out of poverty. Filmmaker Adam J. Graves uses Anuja‘s brief 22-minute runtime to make a meaningful critique of child labor in this Oscar-nominated short drama film.

9-year-old Anuja is played by Sajda Pathan, who herself lives in a Delhi shelter for children. Anuja and her older sister Palak (Ananya Shanbhag) are orphans who work 14-hour days in a garment factory.

Word of Anuja’s illegal employment has gotten around, as has her natural talent for mathematics. A teacher named Mishra (Gulshan Walia) comes to the factory to invite her to take a placement test for a boarding school, though she’ll have to find 400 rupees to pay for it. But the factory’s owner Verma (Nagesh Bhonsle) isn’t keen on letting one of his employees get away.

The invitation presents a real dilemma for the girls. Palak’s old enough to accept the limits of her own prospects and to understand that this may be her sister’s one chance at a better life. But they are the only family each other have, and it’s not easy to give that up for an uncertain future. Anuja doesn’t even know what a boarding school is, so why would she want to leave her sister to go to one?

Both Pathan and Shanbhag do a really nice job playing the sisters, who are hard not to care about. Much of the film’s short runtime is dedicated to showing their fondness for one another, as well as their protective instincts. Though it makes logical sense for Anuja to pursue her education, the emotional cost for both sisters is very clear.

The most effective moment in Graves’ narrative — which is produced by a host of industry notables including Mindy Kaling, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Oscar winner Guneet Monga Kapoor — is a fleeting one. As Anuja runs through a fancy clothing store fleeing its security guard, she spots a mannequin dressed in one of the garments she sewed. It’s a powerful condemnation of the exploitation underlying the fashion industry, and a it’s a reminder for the audience to become more informed consumers. Ignorance of the plight of workers is no excuse for supporting child labor.

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Movie Review: Stree 2 (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Stree 2: Sarkate Ka Aatank (“Woman 2: Terror of the Headless“) works very well as a sequel, but its place in a shared movie universe presents complications.

Stree 2 begins with a well-executed refresher on the events of the original film from 2018. The ghost from Stree arrives at the outskirts of Chanderi, the town she used to terrorize by abducting men who were out after dark. Seeing the statue erected in her honor, she turns away and leaves. Inside Chanderi, she’s further celebrated at a festival where the town’s oddball bookseller Rudra (Pankaj Tripathi) delightfully recounts her story in song form.

Unfortunately, Stree’s absence opens the door for another threat to take her place. The ghost of the conservative village leader who murdered Stree hundreds of years ago visits the town at night, abducting all the “modern” women with aspirations beyond cooking and cleaning for their husbands. Having been beheaded in life, the ghoul rolls his detached dome at his victims, coiling them in his long hair and dragging them away.

The responsibility for dispatching the monster and rescuing the missing women falls to the “Hero of Chanderi,” Vicky the tailor (Rajkummar Rao). However, Vicky is preoccupied, pining for the beautiful unnamed woman (Shraddha Kapoor) who disappeared after helping him drive off Stree years earlier. Even Vicky’s dad (Atul Srivastava) is worried enough about his lovelorn son to give him money to pay for some “friendship.”

Thankfully, the unnamed woman returns to help Vicky, Rudra, and their friends Bittu (Aparshakti Khurana) and Jana (Abhishek Banerjee) vanquish the new threat. But will she stick around after this job is done or vanish into thin air again?

Stree 2 comfortably picks up where Stree left off. Amar Kaushik returns as director, and Niren Bhatt does a fine job taking over writing duties. The film’s world-building is terrific, and the actors fall right back into their familiar characters. It’s fun to hear Vicky’s dad speak about sex only in euphemisms again, and Banerjee’s gullible Jana is as charming as ever.

The main issue with Stree 2 comes from it being a part of the Maddock Supernatural Universe of movies, which besides Stree includes 2022’s werewolf flick Bhediya and 2024’s monster movie Munjya. Jana is a major character in Bhediya opposite Varun Dhawan’s lead werewolf Bhaskar, and both cameo in the closing credits of Munjya. What’s important is that Bhaskar plays a major role in the climax of Stree 2.

Nothing about this is inherently problematic. There’s tons of crossover within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and the YRF Spy Universe promises more going forward. What those universes have going for them is that all of the properties are available on a single streaming platform (Disney+ for Marvel, Amazon Prime for Yash Raj Films). If you missed a film during its theatrical run on want a refresher before a new release, it’s easy to catch up.

That’s not the case for the Maddock Supernatural Universe movies. Stree and Stree 2 stream on Amazon Prime, Munjya is on Hulu (in the United States, Disney+ Hotstar in India), and Bhediya is on JioCinema — a service that isn’t even available in the US. If Maddock wants to embed such crossover into the narrative these movies, then it needs to make them all easy to access without unnecessary overhead and costs. You can’t weave these movies’ plots together but sell the streaming rights to each title to the highest bidder.

It’s a shame that an operational choice by the studio is the only major knock against Stree 2. It’s otherwise a fun, enjoyable movie.

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Movie Review: Chhorii (2021)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Chhorii (“Girl“) isn’t an out-and-out scare-fest, but rather a thoughtful exploration of the real threats faced by expectant mothers.

Nushrratt Bharuccha carries the film as Sakshi, a woman 8-months pregnant with her first child. She loves the kids she works with at her charity in the city, and she’s particularly keen to make sure girls are given the same opportunities as boys.

When thugs beat up her husband Hemant (Saurabh Goyal) for not paying back a loan, the couple’s driver Kajala (Rajesh Jais) offers to let them hide at his family’s home in a remote village until they can figure out a plan. This seems risky given Sakshi’s condition, but Kajala assures them that his wife Bhanno Devi (Mita Vashisht) will be there to help.

Kajala drops them off outside of a labyrinthine sugarcane field and tells them to follow the path to the house. When they find the house, Bhanno Devi is welcoming enough, but her conservatism — such as making Sakshi wait to eat until after Hemant and Kajala have finished dinner — puts modern Sakshi on the back foot.

Then there’s the fact that Hemant doesn’t advocate on her behalf in that situation. Add that to Hemant’s belief that taking Sakshi far away from her doctors to a place with no cell service is a smart idea, and it raises some red flags, at the very least regarding his situational awareness.

Sakshi gets comfortable enough with Bhanno Devi that she okays Hemant’s plan to return to the city for a few days to raise some funds. As soon as he leaves, things get weird. Bhanno Devi’s mute daughter-in-law Rani (Pallavi Ajay) shows up, bearing an angry scar across her abdomen from when she lost her own fetus. And three mischievous little boys appear to Sakshi, asking her to come play with them.

Bhanno Devi is awful to Rani and short with Sakshi when the pregnant woman brings up the three boys. The older woman only ever calls Sakshi “chhorii” (“girl”), and insists that Sakshi follow her rules without question. And don’t get Bhanno Devi started on her former sister-in-law, whom she refers to as a witch.

The supernatural aspects of Chhorii don’t take center stage until the second half of the film, but with good reason. Writer-director Vishal Furia’s story (co-written with Vishal Kapoor and based on their Marathi film Lapachhapi) emphasizes that there are a lot of threats to Sakshi’s well-being beyond ghosts and witches. As sad as it is, she can only be sure of her own devotion to the health of her unborn child. Her understandable mistake in following the judgment of Hemant and Kajala ceded a dangerous amount of control.

Sakshi makes for a satisfying horror heroine. She’s trusting, but not naive; curious, but not reckless. Bharuccha does a nice job in the lead role and plays beautifully off of the undercurrent of menace Vashisht laces into her performance as Bhanno Devi.

Chhorii is most compelling when it leans into its folktale roots. Bhanno Devi tells a parable about a crow in a poisoned tree that is as sad as it is chilling. It’s a little disappointing and unnecessary when Furia includes real-world stats on female infanticide at the end of the film. The moral of the story is already clear as can be.

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Movie Review: Kakuda (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Kakuda is an entertaining horror comedy elevated by solid performances from its talented cast. The film is right in the wheelhouse of folks who enjoyed movies like Stree and Bhoot Police.

The town of Rathodi has been cursed for 65 years. Every Tuesday night at 7:15, one man from each house (women are exempt) must open a small door next to the home’s main entrance to show the ghost Kakuda that he’s welcome. Men who fail to open the door develop a hunchback and die within thirteen days.

This happens so often that the town has a protocol to fill those thirteen days — an extended funeral, but with the soon-to-be deceased in attendance. The glum victim poses for the photo that will hang on his family’s wall while village women sing a peppy song about how he should’ve opened the door on time.

Well-educated Indira (Sonakshi Sinha) lives in a neighboring town and dismisses the Kakuda legend as superstition. Sunny (Saqib Saleem), her boyfriend from Rathodi, knows better. She insists on eloping on a Tuesday, but the wedding runs long and he doesn’t make it home in time.

Even after seeing the hump on Sunny’s back, Indira still isn’t convinced it is anything more than a medical issue. An unsuccessful surgery turns her into a believer. Thankfully, the hospital’s security guard Victor (Riteish Deshmukh) is a part-time ghost hunter, and he offers his services to the newlyweds.

The theme of science versus superstition runs throughout the film, and Victor personifies it. He uses a mix of technology and magic to uncover the grievance driving Kakuda’s curse. Unlike a lot of American supernatural fare, the tragic backstory of Kakuda‘s ghost doesn’t absolve him of his misdeeds. The main trio needs all the help they can to end his reign of terror, including assistance from Sunny’s best friend Kilvish (Aasif Khan) and Indira’s identical twin sister Gomati (also Sinha).

Kakuda‘s cast is perfectly suited for the film’s tone. It’s very funny, but not in a goofy way, so the actors treat the material with sincerity. Sinha does the heavy lifting in her dual role, but Saleem is a wonderful sad-sack boyfriend. Khan is careful not to go over the top as the comical sidekick best friend.

Deshmukh also has plenty of experience in broad comedies, but his performance in Kakuda is understated and right on point. The costuming and styling department deserves credit because his edgy ghost hunter avatar is a particularly cool look.

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Movie Review: Sharmajee Ki Beti (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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First-time feature director Tahira Kashyap Khurrana (wife of actor Ayushmann Khurrana) shows a lot of promise with her comedy-drama Sharmajee Ki Beti (“Sharmajee’s Daughter“). The story peeks into the lives of five women and girls–all with the last name Sharma–living in the same apartment building, as they deal with different gender-related problems.

Kashyap Khurrana makes the mistake that plenty of filmmakers have made before by treating “women’s issues” as a single theme that can be addressed in its entirety in one film. It’s not a fatal flaw, but it does make the screenplay — which was written Kashyap Khurrana — feel unfocused at times.

The character whose arc least successfully integrates with the rest is that of Tanvi Sharma (Saiyami Kher), a single woman living in the building. She’s a state-level cricket player, but her actor boyfriend Rohan (Ravjeet Singh) only cares about her looks. Kher does a fine job showing Tanvi’s attempts to reconcile her self-image with the one Rohan wants her to present, but it’s a thin premise. The movie wouldn’t have suffered without her plotline.

Kashyap Khurrana had everything she needed for a full film with the four remaining Sharma ladies: the mother-daughter pairs of Jyoti (Sakshi Tanwar) & Swati (Vanshika Taparia) and Kiran (Divya Dutta) & Gurveen (Arista Mehta). Daughters Swati and Gurveen are 13-year-old best friends. Jyoti teaches at a coaching center, while Kiran is a stay-at-home mom.

Between them, Jyoti and Kiran face a lot of the problems of modern motherhood. Jyoti struggles to balance her career and the satisfaction it gives her with her duties to her sweet husband Sudhir (Sharib Hashmi) and to Swati. On the flip side, Kiran feels isolated after moving from Patiala to Mumbai, especially with her businessman husband Vinod (Parvin Dabas) acting distant and staying out late. Tanwar and Dutta are both terrific, but Dutta really makes the most of her sympathetic role.

The real stars of Sharmajee Ki Beti are the girls, Swati and Gurveen. The whole movie could have been about them. Their story arcs are that endearing and their performances are that charming. Swati is OBSESSED with the fact that she’s the only girl in her class that hasn’t gotten her period yet. Gurveen tolerates Swati’s constant menstrual talk, while coming to grips with her own preoccupation with one of the pretty older girls at school.

Kashyap Khurrana’s strongest attribute as a director is her faith in her actors, and that faith extends to the two teens playing Swati and Gurveen. The girls have long dialogue exchanges that are shot in one take, and Taparia and Mehta are more than up to the task. Their scenes together are the most immersive in the movie, because they feel like real friends. Keeping the camera on them for as long as Kashyap Khurrana does while both of them are in frame adds to the immersion.

I cannot say enough wonderful things about Vanshika Taparia as Swati. She gives an outstanding performance. She’s hysterically funny when bemoaning her delayed puberty. She’s also crushing in the way only a teen girl can be when her mom forgets to pick her up from school. The recent boom (comparatively speaking) in Hindi movies about teenagers gives me hope that we’ll get to see more of Taparia sooner rather than later. Her performance alone is reason enough to watch Sharmajee Ki Beti.

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Movie Review: Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Bade Miyan Chote Miyan (“Big Master Little Master“) finds the right tone for this comic action movie with some wacky twists. Despite this being one of the costliest Hindi movies to date, director Ali Abbas Zafar makes a few errors in the allocation of his substantial effects budget.

The film’s opening chase sequence is its weakest part. A convoy of Indian military trucks transports a vital piece of defense technology through hilly terrain. A masked villain — later revealed to be mad scientist Kabir (Prithviraj Sukumaran) — unleashes his own army to steal the asset.

Between the rapid-fire cuts and shaky cameras mounted on fast-moving vehicles, the sequence is hard to watch without feeling ill. Zafar has worked with both cinematographer Marcin Laskawiec and editor Steven H. Bernard before, so I’m not sure why this chase is as nauseating as it is.

With the future of India at stake, Colonel Azad (Ronit Roy) recalls two dishonorably discharged soldiers to help Captain Misha (Manushi Chhillar) retrieve what was stolen. Captain Rocky (Tiger Shroff) is quick to agree, but Captain Freddie (Akshay Kumar) turns Misha down — though only so that he can make a heroic entrance when the time is right.

In order to break into the secret vault where the stolen property is being held, Misha brings in IT wiz Dr. Pam (Alaya F) to help. Other than some mild banter between Rocky and Freddie, the tone of the film has been pretty straightforward to this point. That changes with the arrival of goofball Pam, who swoons at the sight of Rocky and promises to protect him, lest she be single again.

From here on, things get silly, but in a good way. The twists thrown at good guys are amusing, with some enjoyable payoffs in later action scenes. I’m a sucker for nonsense science talk in films, and Bade Miyan Chote Miyan has plenty of that. There’s also a lot of time spent changing computer passwords and typing in new ones, which tickled me for some reason.

Action sequences get much better after the early botched chase scene, with the quality increasing as the physical space allotted to them decreases. Shroff and Kumar are both good stunt actors, and they’re especially good in close-quarters fight scenes.

As bombastic as the action in Bade Miyan Chote Miyan is — fans of explosions: you’re in luck — there are occasional lapses of attention to detail. A sequence in which Rocky and Freddie infiltrate a terrorist base in Afghanistan is the worst example of this. A rocket hits a tent, and instead of a stunt actor several meters away being set on fire as a result of the explosion, he and the tent catch fire at the same time. When our heroes throw a grenade under a pursuing truck, the truck is already flipping before the bomb explodes.

There’s also a weird bit of narrative discontinuity in the videos for the songs that play over the closing credits. In the film, Sonakshi Sinha plays Freddie’s former fiancée, and it’s open-ended as to what their reunion means. Yet Freddie romances Misha in the two closing credits songs, despite him showing no interest in her during the film and her only remarking once that his gray hair suits him. It’s bizarre.

That said, there’s nothing so wrong with Bade Miyan Chote Miyan as to seriously detract from the enjoyment of it. Punches are thrown, stuff blows up, and Alaya F is strangely charming as the nutty professor. That’s enough for me.

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Movie Review: Crew (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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The writers of 2018’s terrific buddy comedy Veere Di Wedding reunite with their ace Kareena Kapoor Khan for a new flick about a trio of women in need of cash. The high-concept heist comedy Crew soars thanks to great performances.

Kapoor Khan plays Jasmine, a flight attendant with a taste for luxury goods she can’t afford. Her coworker Geeta (Tabu) pays her family’s bills while her husband Arun (Kapil Sharma) tries to start his own food company. And Divya (Kriti Sanon) graduated from flight school with a pilot’s license but limited job opportunities, and she’s too ashamed to tell her parents that she’s paying off her student loans by working as a flight attendant.

Their employer, Kohinoor Airlines, hasn’t paid their salaries in months, and the cash per diem the crew gets on trips to the fictitious Middle Eastern country of Al Burj is shrinking as well. Rumors of bankruptcy circulate, but crusty old head attendant Rajvanshi (Ramakant Dayma) isn’t concerned. The ladies learn why when Rajvanshi dies mid-flight and they find a dozen gold bars strapped to his chest under his uniform.

Thanks to Jasmine’s quick thinking, they use Rajvanshi’s phone to contact his co-conspirator: the company’s head of Human Resources, Mr. Mittal (Rajesh Sharma). The three women take over Rajvanshi’s role in the gold smuggling operation, and their money troubles vanish.

Soon enough, the ladies find themselves under investigation from the airport customs authorities, right as their smuggling scheme is brought to an abrupt halt. The trio can either wallow in poverty or take back what they feel they’ve earned.

The screenplay for Crew — written by Nidhi Mehra and Mehul Suri — hooks viewers immediately and quickly gets into the action. This is only director Rajesh A Krishnan’s second feature film after 2020’s crime comedy Lootcase, but he shows a real flair for the genre. That said, the pace slows a bit as the story enters its overly-complicated third act, and the resolution feels unintentionally morally ambiguous.

Yet the film is ultimately a success thanks to its leading trio. Kapoor Khan is outstanding and doesn’t waste a single second of screentime. Even when Jasmine isn’t the center of attention, Kapoor Khan reacts in a way that elevates every scene. Her off-the-ball game is perfect. Tabu is a stabilizing force as the most mature of the three women. Sanon gets to do some fun physical comedy, as her character was a former collegiate athlete.

The supporting cast is solid as well, including Diljit Dosanjh in an extended cameo as a customs officer with a crush on Divya.

Crew knows what kind of movie it is and what it needs to do, and it delivers on that promise. What a delightful film.

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Movie Review: Laapataa Ladies (2023)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Kiran Rao returns with her second feature, more than a decade after her directorial debut. Laapataa Ladies (“Lost Ladies“) is a sweet film about the unpredictable consequences of an innocent mistake.

In 2001, farmer Deepak (Sparsh Shrivastav) is returning to his village after his wedding to Phool (Nitanshi Goel). Many other newlyweds are aboard the crowded train, the grooms in their nicest brown suits and the brides wearing red saris with their faces covered by a veil. Deepak steps away for a minute, and seats get shuffled around to accommodate new arrivals. When they arrive at their stop in the middle of the night, Deepak grabs the hand of the bride who is sitting where Phool last was and escorts her off the train.

Only when he gets all the way to his house and his bride reveals her face does Deepak discover that he brought home the wrong woman.

The bride standing in his family’s yard says her name is Pushpa (Pratibha Ranta). She’s not sure where she was heading. The family agrees to let her stay until they can sort things out.

Then there’s poor Phool. She woke up at the last stop on the line with no money and without knowing the name of the town where Deepak lives. A kindly guy called Chhotu (Satendra Soni) introduces her to Manju Maai (Chhaya Kadam), who runs a snack stall at the station. The older woman puts Phool to work, teaching the young woman a lesson in self-sufficiency — just in case Deepak isn’t the good guy Phool thinks he is.

The thing is, Deepak really is a good guy. In fact, most of the people in Laapataa Ladies are good. Rao and writers Biplap Goswami, Sneha Desai, and Divyanidhi Sharma are perfectly aware that the world is a dangerous place for women, so there’s no need to belabor the point. Instead, the story focuses on problem solving and community building as ways to persevere through challenges.

Manju Maai’s support for Phool does the best job at conveying that message. The older woman gently teaches the younger some hard-earned lessons that Phool’s own mother kept from her. Since Phool’s husband would eventually take care of her, why teach the girl more than basic skills like cooking, cleaning, and dancing? Manju Maai explains that sometimes life forces you to make your own way.

Similar lessons are taught back at Deepak’s house, as “Pushpa” — whose real name is Jaya — encourages the women of the house to do things that make them happy and not just prioritize the happiness of the men in the family. These lessons aren’t as organically integrated into the story and feel more like lectures. Still, the sentiment is nice and the film’s ending is made more touching as a result.

The whole cast is really strong. Casting the now-16-year-old Goel as Phool was a masterstroke, as her youth makes the abandoned bride extra vulnerable and innocent. Shrivastav and Ranta also suit their roles to a tee, and the supporting cast is great, too.

The story occasionally loses steam when it tries to incorporate too many facets of small-town life. There’s too much of the greedy police chief (played by Ravi Kishan), and a sequence involving a local politician doesn’t move the story forward at all. Still, it’s hard to knock a movie with such good intentions and so many enjoyable performances.

[Note: Laapataa Ladies debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2023. It released theatrically March 1, 2024.]

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Movie Review: Shaitaan (2024)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

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Parental anxiety takes demonic form in the psychological thriller Shaitaan.

Kabir (Ajay Devgn) and Jyoti Rishi (Jyothika) are the parents of two good kids: teenager Janvi (Janki Bodiwala) and elementary schooler Dhruv (Anngad Raaj). Kabir and Jyoti raised their children with a healthy degree of independence, and their reward is a pair of responsible kids and a happy family.

While driving to their luxurious vacation home for a weekend getaway, the family stops at a roadside diner. There they meet Vanraj (R. Madhavan), a friendly guy who tells Kabir that he has a teenage daughter of his own. Vanraj offers Janvi a sweet, and as soon as she eats it, she knows something is wrong. When Vanraj tells her to finish the food on her plate, she must obey him, even though she doesn’t want to.

After the Rishis drive to their house, Jyoti notices Vanraj standing outside their gate. He tells Janvi to let him in, and she does. Kabir warns Jyoti to lock up the valuables, meaning cash and jewelry. But that’s not the valuable that the demonic Vanraj is there for.

Vanraj warns that, before this night of torment ends, Kabir and Jyoti will give Janvi over to him for all eternity. They swear they won’t, but Vanraj knows how to get what he wants. He’ll turn Janvi into someone they don’t recognize — someone who is a danger to them and to Dhruv.

The family’s predicament invites exploration of a number of themes. Janvi’s bodily autonomy is  a central issue. Her transformation can be a metaphor for everything from addiction to certain mental health conditions to involvement with a controlling or abusive partner.

Bodiwala does a really nice job as Janvi. Her eyes burn with a resistance that her body can’t muster. Bodiwala played the same part in the Gujarati film Vash on which Shaitaan is based, and her experience shows.

The performances by Devgn and Jyothika evoke sympathy for the parents faced with a devastating choice. They’re powerless to help Janvi, so should they sacrifice her to protect Dhruv? Given the psychological nature of the terror in Shaitaan, it’s not a fast-paced movie. The parents spend plenty of time staring in hollow-eyed defeat, but it works within context.

Shaitaan‘s climax tries tries to force action sequences into the story that veer into camp, especially when combined with the supernatural elements. And a needless epilogue is preachy and redundant, given how well the screenplay develops the movie’s themes.

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