This is yet another class act from the directorial notebook of Aparna Sen. The story is not something which is not told before but the presentation mattered a lot for which this movie scores a lot. Kudos to Ms. Sen for bringing out the life which is less ordinary yet wonderful is this motion picture.
The story is a journey and the journey which replicates the life of a superstar of cine world. Mrinalini's life and her meteoric rise to fame and glamour and the men that came in her life. Somewhere down the line it was quite evident that apart from portraying the journey Aparna Sen also wanted to highlight the insecurity of a superstar and her craving for material love which somehow remained unfulfilled. The dialogues were simply unbeatable specially when Koushik says to Konkona "You only think about one kind of love".
The direction and cinematography is excellent and the music by Debojyoti Mishra is very soothing. Acting from different actors were superb but the show stealer for me was Koushik Sen (Chintan Nair). Konkona Sen Sharma (Young Mrinalini) is one of the finest actors of this generation and I found her acting skills were much better than her mother Aparna Sen (Old Mrinalini). Rajat Kapoor (Siddhartha Sarkar) got the most screen presence than any other male actor and his acting prowess shows why he deserved it. Saheb Bhattachrjee (Abhijeet) and Priyanshu Chatterjee (Imtiaz Chowdhury) got limited screen time but their roles were pivotal in order to shape the story, though I feel Saheb cold have done a much better work. Aparna Sen was simply unquestionable but it was Koushik Sen whose subtle performance caught everyone flatfooted. Must mention here that Tritee Basu (Sohini) is one fine contribution to the child artist brigade.
There were very few mistakes and it should not bother the viewers much but the four most notable were:- (i)When Saheb lights his cigarette he used ITC's Aim matchstick which was not available in the Naxalite era, (ii)When old college street was shown a book stall owner was wearing a specs which is of post millennium design, (iii)When Saheb and Konkona were travelling in the tram on the background some hero honda glamour bikes were visible which again were not in Naxalite era (iv)When Konkana was singing in the bar the glass patterns where not available in that era and somewhere also in the retro age some wrought iron furniture were visible.
All in all you need a mature mind to view this movie and to appreciate's its gravity. It is a 7 out of 10 for me.
