Haseen Dillruba: The wicked, twisted side of Taapsee Pannu's characters and its consequences on men

A still from`Haseen Dillruba`, Picture Courtesy: Mid-day Archives

It has been a while since Bollywood made a gripping thriller. One of the last ones that comes to mind is Sujoy Ghosh's ‘Badla', where Amitabh Bachchan played Taapsee Pannu's lawyer, a woman who's been accused of killing her boyfriend. Pannu's shades of grey and the final twist propelled the mystery to shock and success. There's no greater joy than seeing a woman's evil turn on the celluloid.

Pannu, for all her congenial characters, can be equally evil in her performances that are led by credible writing. One of the writers who knows how to write characters for women is Kanika Dhillon, and the woman explodes with ideas and idiosyncrasies for her protagonists. In both ‘Manmarziyaan' and ‘Judgementall Hai Kya', the women are unlikable, unbearable in their own unique ways.

Rumi from that Anurag Kashyap romance, in particular, is vicious and vociferous from the word go. She has more fire than a volcano, and even the spiciest of Paani Puris cannot satiate her razor-sharp tongue. She's madly in love with a spineless freak who's just as boisterous. This was an eccentric but endearing love triangle where Pannu nailed the nuances of Rumi. Vicky, the man she is in love with, is afraid to commit and the reason could either be his own fears or the woman's fiery persona.

In many of their scenes together, Vicky's frightened language is clearly visible, particularly when Rumi asks for commitment. Their conversations are eruptive, but it's Rumi who always wins. She knows how to win, either by yelling or even beating her man. She's a hockey player and that becomes her tool for venting out her rage when Vicky refuses to show up to ask her hand in marriage. How could they have ended up together?

Sujoy Ghosh's ‘Badla', talked about above, is another example where Pannu plays another twisted, mysterious woman who's unpredictability is disarming and dazzling. No accused will accept she's the culprit, no thriller can be made without a story that supports her plea. Ghosh and Pannu cheat the audience by narrating a back-story where the genders are reversed. Bachchan, who's not what he claims to be, cracks the twist before the viewers do, but Pannu hides one vital information that she didn't share with anyone so far.

The boy who has died could have been saved. Pannu is revealed to be the killer and the mastermind of the aftermath all along, and the father of the deceased is forced to impersonate someone else to unravel the truth. A parent would go to any lengths for justice, and this is the extent of Pannu's character's twisted mind in this mystery, an ordinary father had to become Amitabh Bachchan to unearth her crime.

In ‘Haseen Dillruba', which streams on Netflix from today, Pannu finds herself amid another murder and this time it's her own husband. The trailer has moments and montages of her lusty relationship with another man and personally, the suspicion lies on her again. Pannu's Rani Kashyap is established as seductive and secretive so far in the promos. In fact, the first poster of this thriller was festooned with blood and the actress' feet drenched in it.

Going by trailer, ‘Haseen Dillruba' seems to be the Humraaz-Fida palimpsest, but Dhillon is much more than seeking inspiration from earlier pulpy pleasures. What strikes immediately is how Pannu's characters' wicked side continues to get more tumultuous and tragic. From mayhem to misery to now murder, the woman keeps getting more dangerous.

But her clandestine crime isn't getting far away. There's a police officer hot on the trail and he's played by Aditya Srivastava, the man we know as Abhijeet from the television show, CID. The man has now sought help from ACP Pradyuman and Inspector Daya, as shared in a video by Netflix. Srivastava isn't playing Abhijeet, he still has asked the CID team to intervene. After AK v/s AK, the streaming platform pulls off another classic meta . They may fumble in their content, they fly with meta-ness. Hope the actress knows what's and who's coming her way!

Also Read: Taapsee Pannu on 'Haseen Dilruba': Thank the ones who turned down the film