Murder mystery in the setting of an anniversary party in Himachal Pradesh should reek of suspense, of charm and of nasty little twists and turns. Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa arrives with everything in place, a good cast, a festive mood with dark undertones and actors like Saurabh Shukla, Ranvir Shorey, and Vinay Pathak are not up to the task. But instead of an amusing, fast-paced, whodunit, the movie kept circling the theme of wit never hitting a resounding note. The scene is cozy, the plot is alluring, the acting keeps a person interested a bit, but the mystery never fully comes to fruition. What would have been pleasurably strained, proves to be clean and stale.
The action of the story takes place at an anniversary celebration with the picturesque Himachal Pradesh in the background. An intimate circle of friends are brought together to laugh, look back and have a carefree night. The warmth is almost misleading since immediately after midnight, all changes. Sohrab Handa is found dead and this catapults the film in the all too familiar whodunit genre. The structure is quite intriguing that it evokes the feeling of the need to find out who within the group is to be responsible, and why.
It is the enquiry that brings to the front Saurabh Shukla and his appearance gives the gravitas that is in demand. He goes about it in a subdued manner, and often is able to navigate his way in a quiet humour, which is more successful than the overt humour of the film. The material is also uplifted by Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak. Pathak in his turn, brings about an element of uncertainty. His appearances are tinged with a sense of unease, which suggests possibilities the script does not consider in detail.
The movie is evidently based on group-oriented mysteries such as Knives Out. The congested space, layers of communication and a mixture of humour and tension all drive towards that. It takes more than inspiration. The prose is not as definite as whodunit should be. It is unveiled in such a way that it becomes more familiar and it is easy to tell where the story is headed to. A lot of the tension is killed by such predictability.
The bigger the issue is the motive. By the time the film gets to its uncovering, the motivation of the crime seems shallow and unbelievable. This is a hole which is vital in a genre in which the question of the why is as vital as the question of the who. There is no recontextualisation of the story or amplification of its emotional effect and the resolution is under-cooked.
The first half, to its credit, is at a steady pace. In the transitioning of the celebration and investigation, it is approached with a certain amount of delicateness, and there is the sense of momentum that suggests a more complicated payoff in the future. That pledge however, loses its shine as the movie advances.
The stretch is most critical the last. The last ten minutes are too rapid and the revelations, which are vital, are too soon and without the build up. Instead, the movie falls into a quite unsatisfying resolution, instead of a satisfying one, more of an effort to put things together in a hurry than to develop a well-crafted unraveling.
The balance of the tonality between crime and comedy is lacking in the film. Some of them pass by, especially when humour comes about as a natural consequence of the character interactions, and some are artificial. There are some doubles of meaning jokes and short intimate scenes, which can influence the viewing experience, according to the personal choice. The evident use of English in the dialogues may not be gratifying to the audience who may desire that the script be Hindi-centric.
The movie is technically mediocre. The background music is not competing, and the fact that the cinematography of the movie captures the Himachali setting is professional, yet, not visually unique. The film is highly reliant on its acting and storyline, and in that regard, it fails too.
In due course, Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa is a jumble of experience. The performances, especially those of Saurabh Shukla, Ranvir Shorey and Vinay Pathak, are sometimes engulfing, and we get glimpses of a more incisive more engaging film. It is too short lived to make an impression in those moments.
Moviegoers in search of a tightly-twined mystery or a intricate crime comedy may be left wanting. It being a light time-pass whodunit, it is part of the show, nonetheless.
On the whole, it is a mediocre performance which had the elements of something much more interesting but never quite hits the mark.
I would give Everybody Loves Sohrab Handa a rating of 2.5/5.
