Sajni Shinde's viral video Review: Due to weak script, a very good film kept getting made..."

Rating: Three stars

Producer: Maddock Film

Author: Nikhil Musale, Parinda Joshi, Anu Singh Chaudhary, Kshitij Patwardhan

Director: Nikhil Musale

Cast: Nimrat Kaur, Radhika Madan, Subodh Bhave, Bhagyashree, Chinmay Madlekar, Shruti Vyas, Sumit Vyas, Ashutosh Gaikwad, Rashmi Agdekar and others.

Duration: 1 hour 54 minutes

Nikhil Musale, who has won the Best Feature Film in Gujarati award for the Gujarati film 'Wrong Side Raju', directed the Hindi film 'Made in China' in 2019. The film did not do well at the box office. And now as a co-writer and director, he has come up with the film "Sajni Shinde's Viral Video", the premise of the story of which is fake. But this film, while discussing the tragedy of social media, also raises some important questions.

Story:

The story of the film revolves around Sajni Shinde (Radhika Madan), a school teacher in Pune. She wants to be a passionate physics teacher, a loving fiancé, and a perfect daughter. To some extent, she has all this. But one night during a school trip to Singapore, she throws a party celebrating her birthday. One of her friends makes an obscene video of her drinking and dancing, which goes viral. Due to this her image as a best teacher, good daughter, and lovely fiancée gets tarnished. The school's strict disciplinarian principal, Kalyani (Bhagyashree), under pressure from the children's parents, expels Sajni from the school. Her fiancé Siddhant (Soham Majumdar) turns a blind eye to her. She becomes a disgrace to Sajni's father and renowned playwright Surya Kant Shinde (Subodh Bhave) and other members of the family. But she is still a good sister to her brother Akash.

Embarrassed by the video that went viral, Sajni disappears after writing an emotional post on Facebook. In that post, she blames her father and fiancé. Bela Barood (Nimrat Kaur) and Inspector Ram (Chinmay Mandlekar) are appointed to investigate the case of missing Sajni. As Bela goes deeper into the case. The needle of suspicion revolves around many people, from family to fiancé. As the story progresses, many secrets of Sajni's family come to light. A different face of fiancé Siddhant also emerges. But the important question is whether Sajni has committed suicide or someone hatched a conspiracy and killed her. For this, you will have to watch the film.

Review:

Filmmaker Nikhil Musale has raised a good topic of videos becoming increasingly viral in the age of social media and the internet. More and better films should be made on such subjects, but unfortunately, Nikhil Musale has missed the mark here, somewhere he is seen promoting very conservative thinking. In the era of the internet and modernity, people have progressed a lot. At present, due to the kind of video of Sajni in the film which has gone viral, there is no need for anyone to take steps like committing suicide. There is no visible impact on the lifestyle of a father whose daughter has gone missing and it is not known whether she is alive or dead. He is busy performing a drama on his stage. He is busy leveling allegations against his future son-in-law and his daughter's lover against his future in-laws. This thing definitely irritates me. There is also a lack of human feelings and emotions. There was a need to expand the character of Sajni Shinde and highlight her human side, which the filmmakers could not do. Despite some basic errors like this, it manages to maintain the tension and suspense till the climax. It has been layered by aspects like the web of social media, family disparities, social pressure, and misogynist thinking towards women. What emerges from the film is how even a small human mistake can cause problems. Not only this, the filmmakers have also failed to convey the message through this medium that suicide cannot be the solution to any problem, life is very beautiful. Only humans make mistakes, it does not mean that one should end one's beautiful life due to the fear of taunts from society. There are many mistakes in the script. The climax of the film is very weak and it seems that the filmmakers themselves are bored and think of ending it quickly.

Some of the witty dialogues of Nimrat Kaur in the film have definitely become good. For example – ‘Women's Card is not an Aadhar Card, which can be used everywhere’, why does a woman have to justify her rights every time?

Some dialogues of the film are in Marathi, but all the titles are given in English. The important question is, will people come to theaters to watch such a film? Because it was not publicized properly. The cast of the film maintained distance from the journalists on the advice of the film's PR team, but at the end of the press show, Nimrat Kaur and Radhika Madan completed their duty by saying hello to the journalists.

Acting:

Nimrat Kaur, who had given excellent performances in films like 'Lunch Box', could not show the same charisma in the character of Bela Barood in this film. Admittedly, her body language and dialogue delivery in the role of a tough-tempered and straightforward police officer is interesting. Radhika Madan has been successful in presenting the pain, struggle, and irony of her character Sajni beautifully. Soham Majumdar has done acrobatics in the role of Sajni Shinde's fiancé Siddhant. There are many shades in his character. A new dimension of Bhagyashree's acting emerges in the character of school principal Kalyani. Subodh Bhave leaves his impact in the role of Sajni's father and theater artist Suryakant. Only he knows why Sumit Vyas felt the need to play the small role of a lawyer. It seems his ego is destroying his career.

-Shantiswarup Tripathi