Haseen Dillruba

There is an explosion in a house and a man dies. The body cannot be recognised; it is identified by a tattoo on the arm. The police question his wife Rani. She begins to tell it: how the marriage was arranged, the distance between her and her husband Rishu, the cousin Neel who came to the town, and what followed. As she tells it the story changes. Rani also reads cheap crime novels, and her account proceeds in the language of those books. Vinil Mathew directs. The screenplay is by Kanika Dhillon. Taapsee Pannu plays Rani and Vikrant Massey plays Rishu. The structure rests on an unreliable narrator; the events come through Rani's statement and the viewer does not know what is true. What was most argued about is the relationship. The narrative was criticised for presenting a marriage containing violence as a story of passion; those defending it said the narrator's unreliability makes that deliberate. The references to pulp crime novels are a device inside the narrative: the characters try to build their own lives as those books do. Neither of the characters is sympathetic and the film does not correct that. It was released on Netflix and a sequel followed. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian thrillers and unreliable narrative structures. Who it is not for: the tone is contested, the characters' behaviour is disturbing, and the ending is forced.