My Wife's Murder

My Wife's Murder is an extremely well made film. Directed by newcomer Jijy Philip (one of RGV's assistant), the film delves into the psyche of a murderer who kills his wife accidentally.

The story revolves around Ravi Patwardhan (Anil Kapoor) who is a middle class film editor. He has a wife Sheela (Suchitra Krishnamurthy) and two kids. He spends most of his time working away in his studio with his assistant, Reena (Nandana Sen). However, the reality of his home is way different than it seems. His wife is a nag who is constantly bickering and suspecting her husband of having an affair with his assistant. One day, the spat turns ugly and Ravi loses his cool, pushing Sheela which results in her hitting her head on a wooden carving of the bed and dying instantly. Faced with an unapologetic situation, Ravi is hesitant about calling the cops as he fears he might get arrested. And this will ruin his children's lives. Eventually, he decides to play hide-and-seek with the law until the inevitable occurs.

MWM is not a thrill-frill murder mystery. It' s a simply plain psychological film about a man who is unlucky on all fronts: be it personal or professional. The success of Philip as a director lies in the fact that how he managed to keep us glued to our seats despite a simple storytelling. He takes us into the mind of the troubled man and makes us feel his tensions, anxiety, excitement and helplessness. Under RGV'S tutelage, Philip has learned the ropes of direction pretty quickly and in most of the sequences you can catch glimpses of his mentor.

The film has a dark look and it really helps build the tension and suspense. The background score is also apt for the setting. Cinematography by P.S. Vinod is first-rate.

MWM totally belongs to Anil Kapoor. He sinks his teeth into the role of Ravi Patwardhan really well and delivers a fine performance. He is one of the underrated actors in Bollywood. MWM really helped him tap his potential as an actor to the fullest.

Boman Irani is another actor who deserves an equal amount of applause. He is likable as the cop hot on trail of Anil's character in the film. He is made to act more with his facial expression than mouthing dialogues and he does it pretty well.

Nandana Sen is passable as Reena. She gets more scope towards the second half though and she does it well.

Suchitra Krishnamurthy, despite a 15 minute role, ends up giving an award worthy performance. Her role as the nagging wife stays with you even after you walked out of the theater.

On the whole, MWM makes for an interesting watch. Go for it!

Well....I know it's based on a real incident.... but still I would like to say that right from the beginning till the end I keeps your mind fully occupied and no where makes you feel "It's so unrealistic". In fact the attitude of Anil Kapoor's wife too has been portrayed in a very realistic way which leaves a deep impact on your mind. I have seen minor version of such wives who do not trust there husband or people who have negative attitude for everything and are very fussy.

Though the movie made me a little tensed I liked the concept of the movie as a whole. But, a little more comedy would have been appreciable.

The movie has a lot to learn from each of the characters, specially the impact of communication on husband-wife relationship.

What worked: The movie is successful in regards to its tone and the flow of the movie. Despite the ups and downs in the narrative, the climate remains intact and engaging which makes it an interesting watch. The biggest strength of the movie has to be its simplicity as a result the story remained within the reach of an audience but also giving us option of interpretation. Overall, it's a fine watch

What did not work: The movie could have been much better had the writers took care of attendance to details. Also, the movie gets entangled and loses the tone in the final part of the movie making it a melodramatic average watch Final verdict: recommended for its tone

When Anil Kapoor will look down on his Bollywood's career lane, this work will remind him of the actor he always had in him.

This is one of those rare movies from Bollywood that remained completely honest to the genre. So different that if this was dubbed in English many including me would have considered it to be a Hollywood venture without having a moment of doubt, because you wouldn't find anything in it that is typical trademark of Bollywood like unnecessary inclusion of dance numbers, songs, desperate attempt to switch between genre to serve a good for nothing masala (spicy) stuff, and most importantly the running time.

Although every cast member gave their best not to forget Boman Irani who was slowly making his mark in the Indian film industry (now a well established brand), it was Anil Kapoor all the way who made this work so mesmerizing.

Every year, Ram Gopal Verma's Factory churns out so many movies of varied quality that the average quality level of these movies ends up being, well, quite average. It does give a lot of aspiring filmmakers a chance to put their skills in use, but the downside is that gems like Ek Hasina Thi get lost in the dust of movies like James. My Wife's Murder is one such lost gem, and easily one of the best of the Factory movies (including the ones directed by RGV).

Plot Summary: Ravi Patwardhan (Anil Kapoor) is a film editor with a wife (Suchitra Krishnamoorthi) who nags him for every minute he is at home. One such day, she irritates him to the point where he loses his cool and slaps her involuntarily ending up with a dead wife: she falls with a fatal damage to her skull. Now here is a man stuck in his own bedroom in the middle of the day with a dead wife and children about to arrive from school. And this is just the first 15 minutes. The rest of the movie is about Ravi trying to cover his deed and hide the truth from his children (8yrs & 4 yrs), from the in-laws, and from the police. Boman Irani plays Inspector Tejpal Randhawa who smells the fish and tries to smoke out the criminal. Nandana Sen plays Ravi's Editing apprentice.

While watching this movie I realized that its director, Jijy Philip, is not just a man who knows how to make a good movie, but he loves & reads cinema too. This you realize with the subtle and quite unexpected references & homage to Tarantino, Shyamalan & Hitchcock (and maybe others I couldn't identify) without once stooping to rip-offs. Jijy even sets his own style, and then cunningly plays with the audience's mind by side-stepping his own style in a few key scenes. This mix and a completely original style makes this movie and the man behind it a must for fans of Cinema and specifically of the thriller genre. He also comes up trumps in extracting performances from his cast, be it the seasoned Anil Kapoor, yuppie Nandana Sen or even the 8-year old son.

Anil Kapoor has not been this good and convincing since Eeshwar. His subtle and underplayed Ravi is a character that lives by compromise rather than conflict. He breathes a humility in Ravi that brings home the audience's empathy for his guilt and desperate state, such that was only a staple of method actors. Yet his performance is lost out on acclaim due to the misplaced glory in Bollywood Superstars. Sigh.

Anil Kapoor's guilt-ridden protagonist is made that much more believable partly due to Suchitra Krishnamoorthi's short but highly irritating and therefore highly effective role as Ravi's wife. Nobody wants her dead, but her death evokes sympathy for her accidental-killer more than anything. Boman Irani sheds his comic image within a few frames of his entry and continues to defy the lowly standards of Bollywood character roles. His cop is a realist and logical man who hounds his suspect as the want of a real (good) cop would be. The alluringly beautiful Nandana Sen (who I have not seen in any other movie) also plays a realistic character of the rich but earthly editing assistant to Ravi. Does her Reena just look up to Ravi, or is there a subdued crush too? Is her boyfriend's jealously well founded? Her character, like all others in the movie, are well fleshed out to make them real enough to be believable. This helps the director in dealing with the audience directly - he holds on to us not letting go for a single minute in the entire 103 minutes (only!) of this songless movie.

The director also uses a visual style quite alien to Hindi movies: using camera movements to forward the story, follow a character in a steadycam shot or to simply include the audience in the scene. He paints the movie void of any bright colours - there's nothing cheerful about what is unfolding on screen. The background score also plays the build with one particular scene having a clear Signs influence. Gone are any lumbering shots of the car driving down an entire road. We see it enter, and then we see it exit. The editor and the director acknowledge their audience to be intelligent enough to fill the gaps. What it does accomplish is a shorter and tighter movie, and a mostly edge-of-the-seat thriller.

Watch this movie. It is very interesting to delve into the mind of a middle-class humble accidental murderer - especially if he is Hindi speaking. If you like it, talk about it to your friends. Word-of-Mouth may just get this flop movie enough of a following to warrant the Director another effort. It would be worth it.