Monica

Cast: Divya Dutta, Ashutosh Rana, Dadhi Pandey, Tinu Anand, Rajit Kapoor, Kittu Gidwani, Yashpal Sharma, Kunika, Saurabh Dubey, Ashish Kapoor, Kurush Khodaiji

Director: Sushen Bhatnagar

Director Sushen Bhatnagar has earlier made a film called 'Soch' (Danny Denzongpa, Arbaaz Khan, Sanjay Kapoor, Raveena Tandon) [2002] which was again a dramatic thriller and had it's moments for most part of it. Now around a decade later with 'Monica', he has taken a big step ahead. To begin with though, you don't have many expectations from 'Monica'. Reason being that there is absolutely nothing known about the film at all. Worse, since its promotion has been zilch, you do end up believing if the makers too thought that it wasn't worthy enough to spend any amount prior to release.

However, the perception about 'Monica' completely changes within 10 minutes of the film's beginning. Even better, the storyline is absolutely original which means you can't really guess what next would be on the anvil. Based on a real life political turmoil that had shook the nation a few years back when a top politician was embroiled in a telecom scam and a young female journalist was murdered, 'Monica' doesn't take names but exposes the nexus between politicians (Ashutosh Rana), media (Divya Dutta, Tinnu Anand), power brokers (Dadhi Pandey) and industrialists (Kittu Gidwani). In fact so smart has been this depiction that despite a similar theme being exposed in dozens of other films, the going-ons in 'Monica' stay on to be top notch which keep you glued on to the screen. To add to this, there is a brilliant culmination around this nexus when it is depicted on a black board and a piece of chalk by a competent lawyer (Yashpal Sharma) who wants to expose the reason behind the murder at all cost.

To keep the narrative engrossing, most of the first half of the film is set as a court room drama. The film opens with the murder of Monica and then goes into a flashback mode around what could possibly have happened. This is where director Sushen Bhatnagar plays a smart game where he brings in elements of facts and fiction and intersperses layers of assumptions/perceptions into it to come up with a cohesive narrative. There are places in the film though where things become a little confusing. Since there is constant movement between present times and flashback, at times one tends to loose track of beginning of one scene and ending of another. Also, there is constant to and from between locations and time due to which one has to be very attentive about the proceedings. Even the story comes with it's own complexity and since audience is used to seeing a linear narrative, at times one looses track of who is siding whom as well as the perception around right or wrong. Nothing wrong with Sushen's intent though; however if only the narrative was kept a little simpler at least, it would have made 'Monica' a far comfortable watch.

Nevertheless, leading these factors aside, the fact remains that 'Monica' is a film that entertains and keeps you staring at the screen with eyes wide open for most of it's duration. Credit for that should go to able direction, unpredictable storyline, smart dialogues (which have liberal use of expletives - all in English) and top notch acts by Divya Dutta and Ashutosh Rana. Really, these two actors are the pillars of the film and make you wonder why are they not seen on the big screen more often. They deserve that for sure. Even supporting cast does full justice to their parts with Yashpal Sharma leading the pack with a serious positive role, Dadhi Pandey impressing with his cool menacing act, Kittu Gidwani at her seductress best with Tinnu Anand being reliable as always.

First thing that strikes you about 'Monica' is the fact that it isn't really a B grade affair that you were dreading all this while. In fact the initial reels remind you of films like 'Seher' and 'Satta', not from the genre or setting perspective but treatment. This is one of those medium budget films where focus is on drama more than any technical wizardry and this is where the win of 'Monica' lies. Go watch it, you won't be disappointed. One doesn't know if the real-life journalist Shivani Bhatnagar was meant to be a kind of promiscuous enigma. But that's how she is purported to be portrayed by writer-director Sushen Bhatnagar. A kind of Madame Bovary (a novel by French writer Gustave Flaubert) of the fringe world. A cryptic woman and a mystery to others and to herself whose story is pieced together after her death through the wonderfully nimble vision of the movie camera. Alas, the camera, contrary to belief, does lie quite often.

In this interesting though flawed film about a deeply flawed woman who knows not what her body or mind wants, director Sushen Bhatnagar takes a real-life incident from the newspapers and converts it into a well-meaning cinematic treatise. It's done with much restraint but not enough of a grip to keep the slippery characters from slipping off the story board. Frequently the characters appear on screen with very little to recommend them as mere human beings or even as flawed character-studies. Bhatnagar's world of politicians and media persons in and around Lucknow and Delhi appears to be colonised by self-serving stereotypes, trying hard to appear subtle in their devious machinations. Failing in that endeavour, they appear more sinful than sinned against.

Frequently in the course of the narration we feel the characters are being let down more by a lack of creative and financial resources than by destiny. The saga of the small-town girl's ambitious rise from salwar-kameez to skimpy skirts and tops has been done with far more grace in the past. Madhur Bhandarkar's "Fashion" created both the fury and passion of that journey into a hurling doom that small-town girls often undertake in implementing their big-time dreams. Monica Jaitley, as played by Divya Dutta, comes across as a vulnerable vixen. Manipulated and manipulative Monica epitomises the strenuous gracelessness of over-pushy small-towners who topple over the brink in their pursuit of the designer-dream.

The nexus between Monica's world of journalism and the murkier milieu of politics and politicians, as represented by Ashutosh Rana's quietly conniving character, doesn't quite become the heady mix of art and 'vulture' that such cinema has often become in the past (in Ramesh Sharma's "New Delhi" and Rajkumar Gupta's "No One Killed Jessica"). The edges in this hard-hitting story of sex and politics are raw and uneven. The tone doesn't quite catch on the immediacy and urgency required of a docu-drama. The narrative pace sometimes slackens to a slow trot taking away considerably from the why-dunnit's cutting edge. But the effort to recreate the life of a journalist who dared to dream is sincere. Monica is the kind of won't-tell-a-lie cinema that gets trapped in the labyrinth which separates the search for the truth from the truth itself. But the film does create an aura of doomed sensuality around the protagonist without resorting to lengthy cheesy shots of her journey into the bedroom.

The dialogues suggest deeper thrusts of anguish in Monica's life than the ones that she was apparently resorting to for self-enhancement. At the end one isn't sure what killed Monica her ambitions or their inherently absurd nature. For being able to bring out the contradictions in Monica Jaitley's personality, this film deserves some words of praise. The performances of Divya and Ashutosh are tuned well to the theme. But the gifted Rajit as Divya's reprehensible husband is uncharacteristically hammy. The rest of the cast is stiff, self-conscious and unremarkable.

The authentic locations add a hue of familiar discomfort to the film's politics of sexuality. With better production values and more space for the characters to breed credibility, this could've been a remarkable political thriller rather than a film that gets lost in a maze of possibilities. Nonetheless worth a watch for recreating an event from the proximate past that showed how closely and precariously politics is related to journalism And sex. One MJ is a newspaper editor in this film. The reference, I suppose, is to Akbar. And not the king of pop with the same initials. Monica (Divya Dutta), a hot, hungry reporter, works under MJ. She also sleeps under a telecom minister to rise to the top of her profession. What that dizzy top means, we'll get to in a bit.

The minister and Monica have a kid together. Her husband, a failed, frustrated journo takes care of this child; drowns himself in alcohol; watches his wife get abused by the minister in his own house; dips pages of his book that no one will publish into an overflowing bathtub. No one cares for this maimed man (Rajit Kapoor). He should've been central to this story. A catty industrialist (Kittu Gidwani) is, instead. Her name's Pamela Pamelaji. Monica and Pamela, you see, sip on whisky together. Pammi aunty strokes Monica’s bare back as they tuck themselves into a satin bed cover, make love all night. Filmmakers here don’t believe in dull, subtle expressions. It’s New Delhi: the nation’s corrupt capital. Literally everyone’s in bed with the other, if not with Monica.

The first time the two leading ladies of the film, the sensuous lovers, had met, was at an "aalishan" (grand) party in Lucknow. Monica was Divya Duttacovering universities for a local newspaper then. By now, she is already a special correspondent. A special frikin’ correspondent, no less, from a "mamuli (ordinary) sub-reporter," the filmmakers suggest. They probably mean a cub reporter, or a sub-editor. But never mind that. Monica can now become associate editor if she listens to her boss, who has no control over what she publishes as lead stories and headlines in the paper he edits! Filmies in Bombay share a common grouse against scribes. They find their lives misrepresented in the press. If this film is any indication of what journalism could be like, God save the news! Anyway. You didn’t quite walk into a movie called Monica for its striking realism. You went in for the laughs. There’s plenty. And plenty else as the heroine sits around, for most of the flick, always partially clothed, with Classic Ultra Mild's between her fingers, a drink in hand, cellphone stuck to the ears, under a heavy bathroom shower (now that’s the water-proof cellphone we should all want; lost my third-rate one to a wet Holi this week. Damn).

You can tell, this is a B movie that was suddenly allowed better budgets later in its making. The picture is supposedly based on the mysterious murder of Indian Express journalist Shivani Bhatnagar in '99. It could even be inspired by death of poetess Madhumita Shukla, who was allegedly involved with a local don/minister in 2003. No One Killed Jessica on Jessica Lal case (this year). Hit. Check. Politics is pivotal to the plot. Raajeeti on state elections (last year). Hit. Check. This is how cheques get released for pictures like these. Everything else remains in the credit, or edit. Heroine’s on the run. Minister, editor have sent out goons to hunt her down. She gets killed at a Lucknow apartment. Narrative goes back and forth. It’s hard to tell what’s going on. Courts hear the matter. Telecom minister, now about to become chief minister of Uttar Pradesh (Ashutosh Rana), attends hearings everyday. The lawyer finally reveals the truth. He brings in a blackboard to the courtroom, draws three circles "Media, Industry, Politics". At the intersection of this Venn diagram is Monica. If the three circles gang up, they’ll form one circle. Who would they have to eliminate? You got it. "Judge sahiba" is impressed. Murder mystery is solved. Who would not pay for this priceless education? I would.