7 Khoon Maaf

Starring: Priyanka Chopra, Naseeruddin Shah, Annu Kapoor, Vivaan Shah, Irrfan Khan, John Abraham, Neil Nitin Mukesh, Usha Uthup
Directed by Vishal Bhardwaj
Rating: **

ou know a film is great when you are so firmly in its grip that the mind doesn’t wander to any other thoughts or possibilities. That does not happen with Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf, an adaptation of Ruskin Bond’s short story Susanna’s Seven Husbands. The tale of a rich woman whose husbands die mysteriously plays out like a rather flat serial-killer thriller even as you keep thinking of the many interesting zones it could have visited. Perhaps it’s doubly disappointing because it comes from Bhardwaj, who has consistently narrated stories with a fluid, rhythmic visual flair. In 7KM he loses his way. The setting, costumes, look, tone and acting get too overwrought. There are nice strokes like the unexpected, intermittent shift in tenor from the sinister to the jokey, nods to the Berlin Wall, V.P. Singh and Hiroshima in the quirky dialogue. But these inspired flashes are far and few between. The sub-plot with Konkana and Vivaan gets awkward; the spiritual dimension is clumsy. Priyanka’s patchy make-up and abrupt aging is gauche and the film has one of the rare Naseer performances I did not like. What lingers on are Gulzar’s lyrics—billi jaisi aankhon wali meow si ek ladki.