Director: Rajat Kapoor
Writer: Rajat Kapoor
Stars: Vinay Pathak, Koel Purie, Neil Bhoopalam
Synopsis: A seemingly perfect anniversary party at an old mansion turns into a deadly game of secrets when the most hated guest, Sohrab Handa, is found murdered. As the night unfolds, friendships crack, loyalties shift.
The “whodunit” genre is one that is filled with incredibly memorable and dense mysteries, ranging from classics like Rear Window, Se7en and Clue to recent releases like the Knives Out trilogy and A Haunting in Venice, and sprawling across different film regions of the world. Oftentimes, it is the most entertaining, keeping the audience guessing as to who may have been involved in a high-profile murder and who might have finally done the deed. Many a time, “whodunit” murder mysteries also carry a somewhat theatrical flair to them, as characters are often in confined locations where the crime took place, and have to talk amongst themselves to figure out the truth, especially as tensions begin to escalate. It would only make sense then, that someone who is a theater actor/director would take a crack at the genre, which is where Rajat Kapoor enters with his film, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa.
The plot is simple: on a weekend celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary, Raman and Jayanti Chawla (Neil Bhoopalam and Palomi Ghosh) invite a group of their friends and colleagues to a mansion on the outskirts of town to join in on the festivities. The most prominent of these guests is Raman’s business partner Sohrab Handa (Vinay Pathak), who is far from the nicest person in the bunch, as he often berates and insults everyone around him and acts superior to the rest of the crowd. That night, after the celebration has died down, Handa is found dead, seemingly murdered. As the police arrive and the guests are confined to the mansion while questioning begins, it becomes clear that every single person present had something against Handa, and enough reason to want to kill him if the opportunity arose.
Taking place over the duration of a single day, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa often feels like an Agatha Christie play brought to life. Kapoor’s background in the theater medium allows him to present an extensive amount of dialogue-driven moments where characters are limited to only a few rooms of the mansion in total, while ramping up the tension as everyone begins to point fingers at one another to see who would have the most compelling reason to kill Handa. This approach from Kapoor leads to some incredibly strong performances, particularly from Pathak, who is most known by audiences as a terrific comedic actor. Here, playing the unlikeable and disrespectful titular character, he gets to display his more dramatic and serious chops considerably, leading to one of his best performances in years. Kapoor, starring as Chandra, a psychologist who is slowly beginning to understand how fundamentally flawed and messy everyone seems to be, from people like Madhavan (Ranvir Shorey) and his girlfriend Nazia (Kankana Chakraborty) who seem to be seeing each other under suspicious circumstances, to Kumar (Danish Hussain), a news anchor who seems to escalate everything to get views and rile his audiences up, and of course Handa, who continually deteriorates with every scene.
Where Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa also succeeds is in its sense of claustrophobia. Once the inspector, Afzal Qureshi (Saurabh Shukla), arrives to find the killer, Rafey Mahmood’s cinematography is often with close quarters of every character, while also providing some great moments that showcase the surroundings of the mansion, including a wonderfully candlelit moment in the evening, and even providing some clever POV sequences like an extended one-shot which lays out the whole scene and showcases all the characters. The production design is also effective in this regard, making every room feel lived in and every object tangible. There is an attention to detail captured by the camera and Kapoor’s direction that makes the situation far more immersive.
The dialogue is mostly crisp and allows for some great interactions as well, especially when exposing the emotional deterioration of each character, and providing a reason for the distrust between every guest. By the halfway mark, everyone has a reason to hate each other, let alone Handa, and help provide extensive motivations and suspicions to make the mystery more bizarre. And yet, the actual murder mystery angle of the story feels a bit undercooked. On a thematic and narrative level, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa often introduces ideas like the reasoning behind why Handa may be how he is and the backgrounds of other characters building into the mystery, such as with Handa’s father Baba (M.K. Raina), with whom he seems to have a tumultuous relationship, and his quieter brother Arun (Chandrachoor Rai), who also seems to have troubles of his own, but it doesn’t develop many of those aspects past these shallow points. As a result, when the movie begins to explore a few things in later parts of the movie, they do not quite land as effectively as they could. Adding to that, many of the supporting characters do not get much development and screen time to flourish beyond an initial setup, such as with Shorey and Chakraborty’s storyline, which is addressed in bursts, but is relegated to the side after some time.
Towards the end of Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa, however, what also fizzles out is the final reveal, which almost feels like an afterthought and significantly underdeveloped. Save for one moment that only mildly hints at something deeper, the jump to the answers feels less earned. And yet for all its flaws, it never ceases to entertain and keep up a solid momentum. While nowhere near a perfect whodunit murder mystery, it is still a compellingly acted, well directed and lensed thriller that has some excellent moments of dialogue sprinkled in to make the performances shine. Everybody may not love the movie, but it is a fun enough watch.
