Even as Hindi cinema has undergone several reinventions over the past two and a half decades, one filmmaker has quietly continued to explore existentialism and identity through his films, while dabbling in various genres. Rajat Kapoor’s latest Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa, which is out on ZEE5, might be a murder-mystery on the surface, but the filmmaker inverts the genre, deciding to explore something beyond the mere motives behind a murder.

In Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa, it happens through a coterie of interesting characters and chaotic conversations. A group of friends arrives at an idyllic cottage to celebrate the wedding anniversary of two of them: Raman (Neil Bhoopalam) and Jayanti (Palomi Ghosh). Everything seems rosy on the surface, but not for too long.  There is plenty to read between the lines here, in the chatter that captures the invisible hierarchy amongst them all. Suitably, the investigation began well before the murder was committed. While Sub-Inspector Qureshi (Saurabh Shukla, dependable as ever) arrives with an assistant to investigate the murder, the group already has a silent observer examining the other members, who are harmless and guilty at once. Not everyone is friends with each other. Not everything here is about love and companionship. Not everyone wishes the best for each other — and Chandra (Rajat Kapoor) knows that. The cops are not particularly level-headed either, which only adds to the tension.

Cast: Vinay Pathak, Neil Bhoopalam, Koel Purie, Saurabh Shukla, Rajat Kapoor, Sadiya Siddiqui, Palomi Ghosh, Chandrachoor Rai

Director: Rajat Kapoor

Streaming on: ZEE5

The real mystery isn’t about solving the case, but rather about figuring out the inner selves of each other by sheer accident, even if it doesn’t necessarily link to the murder. These interactions are messy, raw, and revealing, never losing steam. There is a lived-in quality to the dialogue, to how the ramblings run over each other in a spacious room full of people trying to be heard. The banter sounds real, including the forced incorporation of a few bad jokes because they are better than awkward silences. So many interesting conversations unfold that after a point it ceases to matter who killed Sohrab — yet the mystery remains, simmering underneath and never letting you off the hook. The narrative often risks capsizing while keeping track of too many characters, diluting its own impact as a thriller, but the conversations bring us back each time.

Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa is a film that respects its actors and depends on their prowess more than anything else. The actors are given a free hand, and it shows. The casting is pitch-perfect, bringing together a whole team of stellar performers (Koel Purie, Sadiya Siddiqui, and Neil Bhoopalam, among others) who live up to the challenging task of not outshining each other, instead lending a cohesive energy to the chaos.

There is also a self-assured skillfulness to Rajat’s filmmaking here, be it in the use of wide frames, the quiet movements of the camera, or the sparse use of a pulsating background score, which makes it doubly effective. The director constantly intersperses the almost-parodically happy moments of the reunion (aptly underlined by lilting piano notes), intercutting them with the tense procedural of the murder investigation. There is also some political commentary waiting for your attention, about the rise of anti-intellectualism and the disdain for academia among other little ideas, but Rajat Kapoor knows when to hold back the reins. He also touches upon class barriers, how the elite always try to evade their guilt, the hypocrisy of living an apolitical life in contemporary times. The focus often shifts, but never strays away. 

The subtle deceitfulness of all the other characters is offset by Sohrab Handa, who stands tall as the unbearably boisterous and mean-spirited man, a bully with no filters. While everyone else has a secret of their own, Sohrab cannot hide his feelings. He is almost unrealistically unlikeable, and Vinay Pathak sinks his teeth into this role with gusto. While the role itself remains surprisingly off-centre in this narrative, the seasoned actor never misses a note. Sohrab’s character and Vinay’s performance provide a brilliantly complementary energy to the narrative, where almost everyone else feels a little too duplicitous. There is only one sequence where we see Sohrab’s tender, vulnerable side — and that moment, after a perfectly satisfying climactic reveal, becomes the catalyst for how we readjust our lensing for Sohrab, how we see him, and what he means to the people around him.

At one point, a character says to Sohrab, “our ideas remain beyond us.” In the past 4-5 years, there has been plenty of conversation about what makes a ticket-worthy movie, which films deserve a theatrical release, and which don’t. Away from these heated debates, Rajat keeps making one good film after another, singing to his own tune and hoping his ideas live beyond these transient phases. Fortunately, almost every one of his films has aged well, and Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa is a fine addition to the Ankhon Dekhi filmmaker’s oeuvre. I have a strong feeling that, like most good films, this will only get better on a second viewing.