A mentor and his protege face off against each other in a harassment case, but Inkaar isn't just about office politics. It's a beautiful story of human relationships, feelings and failings - love, jealousy, misunderstandings, vulnerability, ambition, resignation, defeat, victory, growth, challenges. Most of all, it's a stark reminder that ultimately, we are all fallible, and the only way to be happy in a relationship is to communicate, with each other, and make sure the world doesn't use you for its own agendas.
The story builds amazingly well, and even though it follows a singular track all through, you sit mesmerized, wondering how it will all end. You feel for both protagonists, unable to make up your mind as to who the real victim of the harassment case is. As arguments and counter arguments are presented, you swing from one side to the other, reflecting the complexities of their relationship. You wish they would reconcile, but the more they try, the more they seem to go away. There's one defining scene in the movie - when he holds out his hand to her - what looks like a wonderful gesture of reapproachment and forgiveness, but which with equal conviction, can be looked at as his most shocking display of power.
Arjun and Chitrangda are perfect in their roles. Arjun looks good, and his calm, composed I-care-a-damn demeanour makes him a complex character to relate to. You feel sorry for him at times, but his aloof behaviour and self-belief (beautifully explained through the montages of his youth and his interactions with his old father) makes him a natural candidate for the guy we love to hate, while we admire. Chitrangda looks absolutely stunning, at times vulnerable, at times the ruthless corporate woman who can bring to bear the full force of her personality and her limitations, for her advancement. Very few Bollywood women could have played her role.
The music is beautiful, and numbers like Darmiyaan not only add tremendously to the story, but will remain with you for a long, long time.
The camera work, the editing and the screen play are also wonderful, the shades and tones adding tremendously to the underlying tensions and play.
Sudhir Mishra has taken a complex subject, hardly attempted in Bollywood (Corporate was an attempt, a tiny shade of Inkaar) and presented it in a beautiful manner, staying true to the topic - without stereotypes, without reducing the movie to a semi porno, nor attempting to lecture us on morals and ethics and sanskriti.
This is a movie you need to see more than once to really understand the strong underlying message and appreciate the filmmaking that has gone behind it.
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