Ishqiya

Starring: Naseeruddin Shah, Vidya Balan, Arshad Warsi, Adil Hussain
Directed by Abhishek Chaubey
Rating: ***

Ishqiya grips you with the very first shot of a languid Vidya Balan singing Ab mujhe koi. In fact, the film belongs to her character—one that’s a total turnaround from the cotton sari-clad, demure, woman-next-door image of Jaya Bachchan and Zareena Wahab. Vidya is full-on sexuality, the kind of woman who doesn’t think twice about wreaking vengeance when spurned. Fighting over her are two crooks—Naseer and Arshad—and what you get is a raunchy, teasing, titillating Jules et Jim set in the badlands of Gorakhpur. It’s a world of arms smuggling and gang wars, of anarchy and violence. So you have Arshad talking about how each clan—Thakur, Yadav, Pandey, Jat—seems to have its own army. The film is held together very well by the performances, especially Arshad and a host of little-known names who play the small-towners. To say Naseer is good is obvious. Little touches matter in his romance with Vidya. Like the sepia photo of a beloved preserved in the wallet but forgotten casually when love comes calling again. The film has a great score from Vishal Bhardwaj, especially Rekha Bhardwaj’s rendition of Badi dheere jali raina. In many ways, Ishqiya is also about our collective love for Hindi film songs: Naseer and Vidya bonding over Jaidev’s Tumhein dekhti hoon to lagta hai aise or arguing over whether Hemant or SD composed the Lata song Kuchh dil ne kaha. The rough lingo does get a bit too crude, and the climax hurls out of control.