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Response: Director Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani has been a much-hyped film but turned out to be a disappointment although it was Vidya Balan all the way. It opened much below expectations in movie halls and multiplexes.

Kahaani began with occupancy of 20 to 30 per cent, but because of its Kolkata connect, it did well in the city with over 50 per cent occupancy.

Kahaani has been improving its occupancy though with figures almost touching the 50 per cent-mark. In states like Gujarat, it has done abysmally with revenues of just Rs 10 lakh.

But Kahaani is doing better than other Holi releases such as Chaar Din Ki Chandni. Earnings till March 20 stood at above Rs 40 crore. According to a news channel, Kahaani’s gross earnings till date touched Rs 70 crore.

In the overseas market, Kahaani earned about Rs 3 crore in its first weekend.

Film type: Thriller

Cast: Vidya Balan, Parambrata Chatterjee, Sashwata Chatterjee and Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Director: Sujoy Ghosh

Time of movie: About two hours

Story: In Kahaani, pregnant Vidya is on a mission to find her husband who she claims had gone missing after he went on an assignment to Kolkata.

She comes to the City of Joy, and with Kolkata police sub-inspector Rana, she goes to all the places where her husband visited.

She checks out the hotel where he was supposed to have stayed, goes to his office and his school but draws a blank. Strangely, everybody who interacted with her husband, goes on a denial mode.

She also finds that there was a look-alike of her husband in his office. It is after this that Kahaani sees a twist in the storyline.

Review: Apparently, the storyline is superb and would leave you spellbound, and coupled with this, Vidya Balan’s stunning performance in Kahaani will surely convince you that she is the undisputed leader among Bollywood’s actresses. She has given a litany of hits from Dirty Picture to Kahaani.

Vidya has also shown that no actress in Bollywood can be as versatile as her… from playing the role of a call girl in Dirty Picture to a distressed woman looking for her husband in Kahaani, she has done it all.

Kahaani emits a typical Bong flavour and Sashwata Chatterjee, who plays the role of a contract killer, does it with elan. His skills are only next to Vidya in the film.

Parambrata, who has off late, has had a slew of films in his kitty, plays a charmer as sub-inspector Rana. Also Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who plays the role of Khan, does a commendable job.

Vidya, who played the role of Vidya Bagchi in Kahaani, gave cooked up stories to the police. She says her husband landed on a particular day and stayed in a particular hotel during his assignment.

When the police probed the case, they found no immigration record of her husband, the hotel he stayed denied he had ever been there and his employer did not have his name in its rolls.

Even though Vidya was a pregnant woman, couldn’t the police have checked the phone records of her husband to see what conversation she had with him?

Here, they could have easily found that no such person (Vidya’s husband) existed.

After all, this is the basic information any probe agency would seek. Unless, the agency is really stupid!

But, if the film doesn’t leave you thinking, Kahaani is a splendid thriller, which, we would say, is a must see movie as Vidya is the winner all the way rather than the script.

Rating: 3.5/5