Madha
Ratings: 3/5
Duration: 1 Hrs 53 Mins
Director: Srividya Basawa
Genre: Mystery. Thriller
Release Date: 13th March 2020 (India)
Star Cast: Trishna Mukherjee, Rahul Venkat, Anish Kuruvilla, Bikramjeet Kanwarpal
Plot: MADHA is a serious female-centric psychological thriller that revolves around Nisha (Trishna Mukherjee), who is a proof-reader in an ad-agency. She begins dating a cinematographer called Arjun (Venkat Rahul), unknowing of his devious plans for her. While Arjun leaves for Mumbai to attend his career-related work, Nisha slowly loses her mind in his total lack of response and absence.
She is then shown to be a victim of a scheming group of people creating evidence that she has schizophrenia. And is found in a mental asylum where a lot of experiments are done, obviously illegally, on the inmates. Why does she land there and what happens next is what the movie is all about.
Review: The director Srividya Basawa makes her debut with the film Madha. It is a technically strong film, which is not exhibited as an art movie, but at the same time is not entirely a commercial one as well. Definitely, an honest approach to the genre has been made.
The starting few minutes of the movie are intriguing. However, the love story between Arjun and Nisha is a huge let-down, as it gets into the usual clichés. In short, the entire first half lacks the gripping quality that is required to hold the audience’s attention.
Putting aside the slow-paced introductions and a not-so-gripping climax fact, Madha works for the most part and is a modest thriller.
When it comes to performances Trishna Mukherjee, who’s the epicenter of this tale, pulls off her role well. However, there is more to the part in the second half, and it is where she shines the most. Special mention is needed for her performance as a trapped victim in a mental asylum. She showcases all kinds of pain, for instance, the scared, the helpless one and she nails all of it with a realistic approach.
On the other hand, Rahul Venkat as Arjun is not at all up to the mark, that makes one wonder what the film could have been with a better actor. While Bikramjeet does a decent job. Whereas Anish Kuruvilla has a key role to play, and though satisfactory enough, even he is a let-down in some crucial scenes.
The editing could have been better. The writing is okay. And when it comes to music, there is only one song which is utterly forgetful.
Despite all these flaws, Naresh Kumaran’s intriguing background score adds to the mood of the film when necessary, as it holds attention at the leading lady’s act even when nothing is happening! Moreover, Abhiraj Nair’s cinematography keeps things interesting with the perfect balance that he strikes between the light and color. Even the dialogues, costumes are pretty good. And the aesthetics used, look quite real in the film. Especially, all the visuals in the asylum are too good.
To be precise, there are movies that do not have great ideas but sail well because of the narration, screenplay and the way the story is built. And then there are those that do have an interesting premise but fail because of poor execution. Srividya Basawa’s Madha is an example of the latter.
Overall, Madha is a dark thriller that requires enormous patience to watch. Somewhere at its core, it has a decent plot, but between a low budget, bad actors, and incoherent screenplay, it loses its essence. A lot more thought should have gone into sketching the story out, as it may not have ended up definitely half-baked! Though give this film a shot.
