Time-travel mystery ‘Dobaaraa’ plays with multiple meanings (‘dobaaraa’ is the Hindi word for again), and ‘do barah’ (2.12, twelve minutes past two). An official remake of 2018 Spanish film ‘Mirage’, the film also attempts to play with our heads. Is it possible to go back in the past, and change things?
A family moves into a Pune house, and in the process of settling in, discovers an old TV set-and- camcorder, which crackles to life during a massive storm. Turns out that the house has a dark past: thirty years back, a little boy and his architect mum were witness to what appeared to be a horrible crime in the house next door, leading to a tragedy.
Visitations from the past, rocky marriages, and the leading character Antara (Taapsee Pannu), ricocheting between the past and present: the set-up is briskly got out of the way, and we are all set for some thrills and chills. Anay, the boy-from-the-past has people who remember him in the present, and his memories of an unresolved crime lie at the heart of the puzzle Antara finds herself in: who is she really, a nurse with a dodgy husband (Rahul Bhat) and a pretty daughter, or an exceptionally talented doctor whose mentor (Nassar), is proud of her? Does the handsome inspector (Pavail Gulati) who appears to show up wherever Antara is, know more than he lets up? And how will she find her way back?
Some puzzles draw you in with their smartness and intricacy. I haven’t seen the original, so I can’t comment on how ‘Mirage’ meshes its many strands, but ‘Dobaaraa’ comes off too choppy and muddled. It’s hard to keep track of the many things happening in the time zones the movie slips in and out of; the characters keep going off on tangents, the intrigue goes missing, and the film flattens.
The biggest puzzle is that ‘Dobaaraa’ never feels like an Anurag Kashyap film. His trajectory may have been uneven, but never, at any point, did any of his films not feel like his films, complete with his very specific authorial stamp. Where is that AK? I want him back dobaaraa.
Dobaaraa movie cast: Taapsee Pannu, Pavail Gulati, Rahul Bhat, Saswata Chatterjee, Himanshi Chaudhry, Nassar
Dobaaraa movie director: Anurag Kashyap
Dobaaraa movie rating: 1.5 stars
(With inputs from agencies)