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Release
date:
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March 9, 2018
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Director:
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Arjun Mukerjee
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Cast:
Language:
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Renuka Shahane,
Pulkit Samrat, Masumeh, Sharman Joshi, Richa Chadha, Aisha Ahmed, Ankit
Rathi, Saunskriti Kher, Tarun Anand, Himanshu Malik
Hindi
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In a crowded middle-class apartment
block in Mumbai, Flory Mendonca (Renuka Shahane) demands a price so exorbitant
for her flat that no one has been willing to purchase it for years. Then along
comes a potential buyer called Vilas Naik (Pulkit Samrat), anxious for a house
near a train station.
In the same building, Varsha
Angre (Masumeh) bonds with her kind neighbour and tends to her little son, while
coping with daily abuse – sexual and otherwise – from her unemployed, alcoholic
husband.
Flory and Varsha watch
indulgently as young Malini Mathur (Aisha Ahmed) and Suhail Ansari (Ankit
Rathi) fall in love, much to the chagrin of their respective parents. The girl
dares her mother to explain her objection to Suhail. Say it, we will her too.
C’mon, say that you do not want your Hindu daughter to marry her Muslim boyfriend.
But Mum cannot bring the words to her lips and in a sense it comes as a relief
that an apparently prejudiced human being is aware enough and therefore ashamed
enough not to articulate that prejudice.
A couple of floors below them, lives
a glamorous, dolled-up woman (Richa Chadha) with flowing black hair, a sari
pinned so low below her navel and a lifestyle so unconventional as to send
pulses racing among the horny men in her locality and their gossip-mongering
allies.
This is the setting of debutant director
Arjun Mukerjee’s 3 Storeys, a housing
complex that serves as a microcosm not just of the bustling city beyond but the
country as a whole. In these homes, people grapple with their past and present,
with domestic violence, casteism, communal biases and long pent-up anger. Some
look placid and collected on the outside, but inside there are festering wounds
that will kill them if never healed.
Mukerjee’s film moves along at a
clipped trot, without appearing too hurried. Each segment in 3 Storeys comes armed with a twist in
the end, not in the style of crime thrillers, but in the tradition of some of
the world’s greatest short-story writers in the league of one of my favourites
of the lot, O. Henry.
3 Storeys
serves up
its best right at the start. The motivations of the eccentric Mrs Mendonca and the
youthful Vilas, who looks too well turned out to fit into that grubby society, are
intriguing and hold attention till the final frame. Bollywood has stereotyped
Goan Christians from the beginning of time, so this lady comes as a pleasant
change. The industry has not yet thought it fit to make a film featuring a
sari-wearing Goan (yes, they do exist, Bollywood!), but it does show this one
speaking Konkani in addition to English and broken Hindi, which is refreshingly
different from the portrayal of the community as quasi-foreigners so far. Shahane
is nice to watch and packs some interesting detailing into her performance (note
how she pronounces “truth”) which begs the question: why do we not see her more
in films?
When the denouement in Flory and
Vilas’ saga comes, it should be unnerving, but instead it is executed so matter
of factly and with such little fuss, that a guilty laugh escaped my lips as I
watched it.
(Spoiler alert) The credits let on that
this one is “based in part on the short story by Henry Slesar titled ‘The Right Kind of House’”. I had not
read Slesar’s tale earlier, but managed to find it once my curiosity was piqued
by Shahane and Samrat, and I cannot understand the “based in part” claim, since
“based entirely” is more accurate. Ah well, in a film industry that has only in
the past decade begun routinely citing its sources, this is an act of honesty
worth appreciating considering that the work of fiction in question is little
known in India.
If you have not
read The Right Kind of House, do not
go looking for it until you watch 3
Storeys. Why rob yourself of the fun to be had in discovering its secret? (Spoiler alert ends)
The remaining stories in 3 Storeys are just as efficiently related
by Althea Kaushal-Delmas’ screenplay and Mukerjee’s directorial hand, though the
endings in two of them are less exciting.
(Spoiler alert) Varsha’s inter-caste romance feels
somewhat antiquated in its climax and the Suhail-Malini affair’s conclusion
could be seen coming from a mile. I have heard a similar real-life account so
perhaps it is unfair to expect an acknowledgement of the original literary
source in the credits, but if you have watched The World of Rudra in Bejoy Nambiar’s bilingual Tamil-Malayalam
venture Solo last year, there is a
point at which you will know exactly where this one is headed. (Spoiler alert
ends)
Be that as it may, 3 Storeys’ brisk pace, realistic feel
and undramatised tone make it worth a watch. It would help if you do not know
what the finale in each short carries, but even if you do, there is
considerable enjoyment to be derived from this film. Besides, the way it is
wrapped up too defies expectations. And its running time of 99 minutes and 49
seconds is just right for the written material at hand.
Mukerjee is a business-like
storyteller who has clarity about his approach to the project. He does not
overtly try to make a grand statement about life in Mumbai, focusing instead on
particular lives that catch his eye and, as it happens, making a point while he
is at it.
The cast is uniformly good. While
the rare big-screen appearance by Shahane is the centerpiece of 3 Storeys, each of her co-stars is gifted.
Debutant Aisha Ahmed is a commendable find, and the presence of both Masumeh
and Sharman Joshi here raises the question I asked earlier about Ms Shahane:
why on earth do we not see more of these talented artistes in films? For them,
and much else, 3 Storeys is time well
spent.
Rating
(out of five stars): **1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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99 minutes 49 seconds
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This review was also published on Firstpost:
