Star Cast: Geetika Vidya Ohlyan, Saloni Batra, Gauri Chakraborty, Mohit Chauhan
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Director: Ivan Ayr
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What’s Bad: It says a lot through subtext & that could be worrisome for a certain set of audience, the story along with telling what it wants to should’ve been more intriguing
Loo Break: Depends if you’re watching it on your phone or television; you can pause if on TV, take your device with you if on phone!
Watch or Not?: You don’t have to invest anything apart from your time & that too just 97 minutes! Go for it and I’m sure you’ll NOT be disappointed
User Rating:
Soni (Geetika Vidya Ohlyan) is a no-nonsense police officer who’s hot-headed when it comes to breaking the law. Her senior officer Kalpana (Saloni Batra) is more on a mature side and softhearted for her colleagues. The story starts with Soni carrying out an undercover task to catch an eve teaser at night on the foggy (or smoggy?) roads of Delhi.
Soni goes overboard and beats that goon breaking the protocol. With some more similar instances, she gets transferred to another department leaving her senior, Kalpana, restless. Kalpana defends Soni’s act to reinstate her back to the same department. The primary plot revolves around these two ladies & how they uncover their lives by understanding what’s going wrong around them.
Ivan Ayr’s story is simple and thought-provoking. There’s nothing major happening throughout the film still it forces you to think. Along with tackling the social issue of eve-teasing, it also focuses on the personal growth of the protagonists. The story just flows in its own sweet pace hitting you hard with most of the scenes. From its treatment, it feels like an Iranian film with zero background score using the natural sound of surroundings.
David Bolen’s camera is the salient third hero of the film. It just captures the streets & foggy nights of Delhi like never before. There are scenes which are excessively dragged & that’s where the movie lacks from being a perfect one. Only if it could’ve been more intriguing as everything else falls perfectly in place. Where the movie wins is in exposing major issues through very simple conversations.
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Geetika Vidya Ohlyan as Soni leaves a permanent mark with her performance. She’s very natural and not for a scene you’ll feel she’s enacting a scene. It feels they’re shooting life of few real people without them knowing that they’re on camera.
Saloni Batra underplays her character with brilliance. She expresses the helplessness very well on her face. Her character is written keeping the very roots of human nature in mind and she displays it with utmost honesty. The actress playing Mrs Huma (Gauri Chakraborty) needs a special mention for being authentically organic in whatever little screen space she got.
This is Ivan Ayr’s debut film and it says so much from the kind of school he comes from. Developing a 96 minutes film from a single thought needs an applaud. He just gets into the lives of his characters and that helps us to connect with them. The track of Soni and her partner Naveen also hits at a crucial juncture in the story. The conversations over ‘chai’ are backed with very powerful writing.
There is absolutely no music in the background, not any of which I remember. A hush wave of instruments fades in towards the end along with credits. It’s highly impactful how the makers have used all the natural sounds to build the sequences.
All said and done, Soni is not just a movie it’s a much-needed conversation between two female police officers about what’s still wrong in our society. It never steps out of the line to promote what many will call it ‘feminism’. It just says what is necessary and should be basics as far as humanity is concerned.
Three and a half stars!
Soni Movie releases on 18 January 2019.
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