REVIEW: WALVI (Marathi)

Producer- Zee Studios and Madhugandha Kulkarni

Director- Paresh Mokashi

Star Cast- Subodh Bhave, Swapnil Joshi, Anita Date and Shivani Surve

Genre-Suspense Thriller

Platform of Release- Theatres

Rating- ***

Jyothi Venkatesh

At a time when Marathi Cinemas is hovering with historicals and tales of peasant suicide, it feels like you are breathing a fresh whiff of air when you get the opportunity to watch a slick thriller like Walvi The plot of the film hovers around a husband (Swapnil Joshi) who plots to kill his mentally deranged wife (Anita Date) as part of his extramarital affair, and he, his dentist girlfriend (Shivani Surve), and a psychiatrist (Subodh Bhave) get caught up in it. I think talking about it beyond this would kill the film. In the film, Paresh has made a connection between the husband’s wife’s research on termite and how the termite in the human brain destroys a person and how exactly it ends.

How exactly due to this incident the life of the 4 characters in the story takes twists one after another and whether all of them are able to come out of it unscathed or not, we will be able to see in the film when the plot unfolds slowly but briskly get the answer in this film. All four characters in the film are just as confused and morally corrupt as we are when we set out to watch the film, and that’s why even in the most serious situations, we will be able to laugh at their little antics. This is the true pinnacle of dark humour, and Paresh Mokashi succeeds and nails it completely and achieves the feat.

Considering that Paresh had earlier come up with some gems like Elizabeth Ekadashi, Harishchandrachi Factory, I think it is wrong to say that though from Jaane Bhi Do Yaron to the recently released Andhadhun and Darlings, experiments in the field of ‘dark humour’ in Marathi films have been very few, or even non-existent. From the way the camera has been handled with indulgence to the intensity in the background music, Paresh has seen to it that each and every department does not lag behind at all in enhancing the quality of the film. 

The film Walvi can bring a big as well as positive change in the stagnating Marathi cinema, considering that people say that Marathi films are floundering these days and the producers have also stopped holding press shows of late, because the director has dared to come up with a different soul stirring stuff.

As far as the performances of the artists, I should say that each and every one whether it is Swapnil or Subodh or for that matter Shivani or Anita, each and every one has come up with his or her career best. Go and grab your ticket for the film please and stop cribbing that Marathi Cinema is dead.