Director Sujoy Ghosh has always been a curious case for Hindi cinema. Gloriously nutty to be dismissed [even in misfires like his recent Lust Stories 2 segment], and yet undercooked during several key moments. A great grip over the air he creates in scenes, but also an imitative quality that seems to have set in since his first ‘blockbuster’ in Kahaani (2012). Since Vidya Balan pulled the rug from under all of us, more than a decade ago, Ghosh has made one sequel, remade a Spanish thriller, and now followed it up with another adaptation of a popular novel, The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino – who was also the inspiration behind Vasan Bala’s Monica! O My Darling (2022).Jaane Jaan – borrowing its name from the haunting Laxmikant-Pyarelal number, sung by Lata Mangeshkar and filmed on Helen in Inteqam (1969) – ends up more of as an acting showcase [for at least two of its three leads] rather than the detective piece it is meant to be. The premise of Higashino’s novel also served as source material for the wildly successful Drishyam franchise. One wonders if Ghosh is going to mine the same source material and if so, what else will he bring to it. A fresh point-of-view? Some smart choices that subvert the audience’s expectations in important scenes? Unfortunately, very little in Jaane Jaan feels born out of love.Sujoy Ghosh’s fingerprints are all over this adaptation – and it is visible in some very deliberate choices. Like the way he weaponises his protagonist’s femininity. It has been a recurring theme since the first Kahaani and in Badla, where he recast the male protagonist with Taapsee Pannu. It makes the divorced single mother of Maya D’Souza (Kareena Kapoor Khan) almost tailor-made for Ghosh’s oeuvre. The film is set in misty Kalimpong – where everything appears hazier than usual – which is another one of Ghosh’s favourites. Kahaani 2 (2016) was partly shot here as well.Maya and her daughter, Tara, are neighbours to Naren (a scene-stealing Jaideep Ahlawat) – a gifted-but-depressed Math teacher at a local high school. Maya runs a cafe, Naren goes there every morning to collect his egg fried rice to carry as his lunch. Maya’s colleague at the cafe – a wasted Lin Laishram – is relegated to giggling like a teenager each time Naren enters the cafe. They know Naren likes Maya, they tell her. She dismisses them, even though she sees his blushing pockmarked face everyday. “Like the sun,” as a character says at one point.Just when Maya, Tara and Naren’s world seems almost too blissful, a shadow lurks. Maya’s ex-husband (Saurabh Sachdeva) returns and you can immediately see the trauma he has inflicted, with a single expression on Maya’s face. A crime is committed, a body needs to be disposed of. It’s an interestingly staged scene of crime, one that isn’t clinically premeditated, but one that’s slowly built towards, concluding with a few seconds of anguish and desperation. Kapoor-Khan is excellent in the scene – conveying the feeling of being violated by a man’s mere presence, and remaining tactful, as her observant neighbour comes to check up on her as a corpse lies in her living room.It is a superb mix of actors – Kapoor-Khan known for her starry charisma is supposed to take on the more studied styles of Vijay Varma and Ahlawat. On paper, it is a combination made in heaven. However, it rarely lives up to its potential. An awkwardness remains between the three actors – the performances never blending in together, instead remaining as three distinct elements at the end of a scene. Naren’s mathematical analogies feel forced and amateurish in some scenes. Most of these scenes feel tentative – uncertain of ‘how much math is too much math?’ for the blockbuster audience. Vijay Varma – rarely trusted with such ‘positive’ characters – smartly employs his charming, rom-com lead persona as a front to uncover the rot beneath the surface.A major problem with Sujoy Ghosh’s Jaane Jaan – even while perfectly ‘consumable’ and ‘engaging’ in the moment with good moodiness and lovely actors – never becomes particularly memorable. A ‘reveal’, two-thirds into the film, about why Naren has been helping Maya and Tara – never really hits you with a wallop of unexpected warmth in a cold film like this. It is apparent from the first scene itself. The inter-cutting of an interrogation with a martial arts duel feels like the film is trying too hard to draw attention to its craft. The visual language seems to have a severe Japanese manga hangover, Avik Mukhopadhyay’s frames trying hard to mimic those panels. It feels vacuously stylish in more than one place.Not every detective drama needs to reinvent the wheel like Park Chan-wook did in Decision To Leave (2022). It is possible to remain faithful to the tropes and still end up with a respectable and compelling film. Jaane Jaan seems obsessed with delivering catharsis to its audience, without caring about how it gets there. A detective story that doesn’t care about the little details, is arguably one of the most agonising viewing experiences. Sujoy Ghosh is still in nowhereland.
