What will draw you into theatres to watch the macabre trajectory of a love-less woman’s misfires is going to be the effervescence of the film’s monster hit number, Darrling, but once you stumble on it, you will aspire for more of such light moments in an otherwise shifty film.
7 Khoon Maaf opens with a narrator hand-holding us through the journey, a plot device that has been over-used in cinema. Going any further on the plot will kill your excitement, so here’s what we all know.
Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes (Priyanka Chopra) is a femme fatale who has to kill her seven husbands in search of a perfect match. The seven husbands are, Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irrfan Khan, Aleksandr Dyachenko, Annu Kapoor, Naseeruddin Shah and…surprise surprise, who is the seventh husband?
So there, if I have not already blown the lid. Supported by a die-hard team of servants, including a hearty Usha Uthup, Susanna goes about her business with clinical precision each time a husband fails the litmus test of his devotion to her.
In a role that spans across ages, Priyanka is encumbered to display a range as chameleon as the seasons that flit across the screen; the sleepy small-town where she lives in her withering mansion to the pristine snows of Kashmir, back to the ghoulish church and graveyard where her life-changing decisions are etched, to the shores of a sunny beach in Puducherry.
The story of the men of her many lives is told in episodic style, a serialization of a serial-killer. Neil, who plays her first husband is a brute who brings it upon himself by trying her patience. Priyanka’s character, who lapses into bouts of depression, is sporadically cheered up by the arrival of a heroin addict rocker (John), a bizarre poet (Irrfan), a cutesy Russian (Aleksandr), a sweet talking police officer (Annu) who is investigating the murders and a mild mannered Bengali doctor (Naseer) who is a bit of a quack. The thrill ride with these men is equally short-lived post marriage.Â
All of the men in this film are secondary to Susanna’s story, and very briefly do the men stand out in an out and out Priyanka vehicle. Of the husbands, Irrfan’s descent into madness comes as a startling revelation just when you sit back for some respite after the very elegant Bekaraan is played out. Aleksandr’s 'for laughs' lines are perhaps the only time you will smile in this dark, broody film. Annu Kapoor, who has put a foot in his mouth by woefully crying to the media about his leading lady’s ‘no kiss’ policy for him, packs in a performance worthy of attention, despite the so-called kiss which is missing.Â
The kiss that shares with John, or the skin that she flaunts with other men, in plenty, not without a reason, as if to bare her soul, Priyanka sinks her teeth into this character she has obviously invested so much in, a character, unlike her What’s Your Rashee’s cardboard cutout imagery, is shaped with perplex moods she has fittingly grasped within her periscope.
Trust Vishal Bhardwaj to be perfect with his technical finesse; the locales sewn into a snuggly quilt of melodious sounds, the set-pieces detailed to the last falling Viagra tablet, to Priyanka’s age reflecting in the mirror of her beautiful face ravaged by destiny’s ugly smear.
Despite this,turns out to be a film you have seen before, in prior Vishal Bhardwaj films. Amidst all the blood-letting in the film, you wish there were some roses too.
