Jalsa Movie Review: Worth the prateeksha!

JalsaOn Amazon Prime VideoDir Suresh TriveniCast Vidya Balan Shefali ShahRating 355Frankly I canrsquot recall any other time that Irsquove wrapped up a film and gone back right thereafter to the opening credits mdash obviously not to look up the cast or director those are wellknown but to scroll slow and find the sound designer for a special mention something one doesnrsquot tend to do usually or ever in factThe name mentioned is Anthony Jayaburan And so far as this film is concerned mdash but movies in general I reckon mdash hersquos the reason that if yoursquore alone you should ideally plug in a kickass headphone while watching itThe sound in all its playful majesty and shock value is the first thing you notice about Jalsa Which is anyway a technically sound film across all departments mdash cinematography production design et al The credit for which as always must go to the directorWatch VideoThatrsquos Suresh Triveni who first filmed Vidya Balan in the frothy and feminist Tumhari Sulu 2017 This is his second feature starring Shefali Shah alongside Balan mdash with even the great Rohini Hattangadi a few steps behind both Canrsquot think of better female actors to frame a film regardless of genreTaking away nothing from other equally warmly handpicked actors playing parts from entirely worlds The relatively large cast of characters with adequate backstories are so inspiringly interrelated or hyperlinked that each one just manages to matter much to the movie and therefore to each other Think of it as Alexandro Innaritursquos Amores Perros 2000 that initiated a global interest in this kinda storytelling Maybe but not too much thoughSmart background score apart what you also repeatedly observe in the foreground is a series of shots to do with multiple screens mdash CCTV tablet cellphone homedoor security cam gaming on TV news monitor etc Whatrsquos the film trying to say That the screen entirely envelopes our lives anywayWhatrsquos perhaps not so true in this Mumbai movie is that therersquos ever a moment in the life of the city that never sleeps no matter where you are that nobodyrsquos around I think thatrsquos what makes Bombay one of Indiarsquos safest cities in particular for women We havenrsquot started living altogether in the metaverse yet Jalsa opens with a vast stretch of an empty rail overbridge followed by a totally quiet road in the dead of the nightThis is when a young girl from the underclasses gets hit headon slammed straight by a speeding car Itrsquos an accident alright Which sets off a series of events loaded with drama both solid and soft more than a touch of irony mdash and if you look hard enough yoursquoll find enough humour tooAs a screenplay credited to among others Trivedi and Prajwal Chandrashekhar this multiculti movie based on a massive coincidence is what yoursquod call a lsquomoral dramarsquo A genre that Iranian cinema kills the world with mdash and in India certain Malayalam movies get so rightWhy a moral drama specifically In the sense that the woman Balan who was driving the car and sped off after knocking down a young girl mdash a fit case for hitandrun mdash isnrsquot some rich brat or a callous movie starShe is a popular television journalist now working on the web mdash a perennially virtuesignaling selfrighteous scribe demanding accountability from the mighty and speaking truth to power as it were Guilt and redemption are at the core of this picture then God knows that double helix has produced some of the greatest movies of alltimes anywayWhatrsquos the massive coincidence though That the girl wasnrsquot any other poor pedestrian either She is the daughter of the driverrsquos childrsquos nanny Shefali ShahBasically Balanrsquos character has blood in the hand of someone she knows all too well The suspense thriller through bends and turns mdash zooming in on relationships and therefore sometimes tending towards a slow burn mdash that follows is what makes Jalsa yet another film starring Balan in the lead thatrsquos been worth all the prateeksha waitItrsquos almost like she canrsquot go wrong with the choice of pictures This one bears a censor certificate which means it was originally meant to be a theatrical release Ideally should have been Already looks good wouldrsquove sounded even better still