Gandhari Movie Review And Rating: Taapsee Pannu starrer Gandhari starts off well but then gets trapped in its own labyrinthe of ambitions. On the surface of it, there are enough motifs that could have made this social thriller novel. But the problem arises when the makers only look at these motifs like ornaments to make the narrative look nice and are unable to actually interweave them into the fabric of the story.
Remember how Kolkata came alive like a character in Sujoy Ghosh’s Kahaani? That doesn’t happen here. There’s an attempt and a desperate one at that to make Joypurra, the fictional town in which Gandhari is set, an animated entity – one that deifies a goddess and breeds monsters at the same time. But eventually, Joypurra gets reduced to the stereotype of a Bengali town seeped in occultism and crime.And then there’s the Bahurupi community. Gandhari makers try to use them effectively, adding dollops of eerie suspense and an almost folkloric quality to the narrative. But by the time the climax arrives, it becomes apparent that they were little more than a narrative trope, brought in to bloat the story. Ultimately, their presence feels entirely underdeveloped and superfluous.But thankfully, director Devashish Makhija and writer Kanika Dhillon waste no time in establishing the crux of Gandhari. During a train ride, Bani and Gokul’s five-year-old daughter Mishty gets kidnapped under broad daylight. While Bani’s on the run to rescue Mishty from the clutches of the perpetrator, she injures herself. The trauma leads her to lose vision in both eyes temporarily.
The couple then goes to the Joypurra police station to file a report but the cops are indifferent and even lax. When anti-human trafficking unit officer Kabir enters the picture, we learn that Mishty’s kidnapping is a part of a larger child sex trafficking racket by a gang called Blackhole. When the police prove to be ineffective, Bani decides to take matters in her own heads.
With the help of a woman named Jhunu Amba, who’s also secretly trying to rescue the children who’ve been kidnapped, under the garb of a jhalmuri seller, Bani learns martial arts. She and Gokul start staying in Joypurra to understand the city and its nooks and cranies better. Even when she regains her vision, she conceals the fact that she can see, allowing her to gather information without arousing suspicion.
