Dobaaraa review: Taapsee Pannu's stuck-in-a-time-loop act in Anurag Kashyap's new world is predictable yet edgy

3/5

One unanswered question with a plethora of unresolved queries. Experience an emotional rollercoaster while reading this classic thriller, and get ready to consider some of history's most perplexing notions.

Time travel and the multiverse have become a part of our world, with Marvel exploring it to the next level. With Dobaaraa, Anurag Kashyap has taken up the responsibility of showcasing this genre, with Taapsee Pannu being the face of it. Although the film is a remake of the 2018 Spanish film Mirage, the filmmaker has made it into its own and the outcome is quite different from the Kashyap films we have been watching for over two decades now.

The filmmaker's usual trope is to make movies that are quite uncomfortable for the viewers to watch. In that sense, Dobaaraa seemed to be a smooth ride but an edgy thriller too. The film juggles between 1995 and 2021, with the former year seeing a boy witnessing a murder in his neighbourhood and eventually facing death too. Cut to 26 years later, we see Taapsee's character Antara in an unhappy marriage but a happy mother, discovering the TV of the boy who died.

With the two timelines, along comes a third one out of nowhere and makes the film as exciting as it can be. Taapsee once again shoulders the whole film of finding out the truth of so many things which are laid out in front of the viewers. We also meet a cop, Anand (Pavail Gulati), who in the current timeline follows Antara as she seeks the truth about her life changing upside down.

Although the viewers get an idea about Taapsee's fate or how she has landed up somewhere, it's Gulati's character that turns out to be more mysterious than usual. However, after a point in time, it's not tough to crack the code of what the story is turning out to be.

Even though I did not watch the original film, Mirage, I watched Dobaaraa just like a new film, and to sum it up, I might call it "thrilling yet predictable." The film does keep you on the edge of your seat while awaiting the next move. The antagonist, played by Saswata Chatterjee, does his play and his crime is well-established in every timeline of the series.

Meanwhile, the disappointment with the film comes from the predictability of the film as it progresses further. However, with Kashyap's direction and Nihit Bhave's screenplay, Dobaaraa indulges in the dark humour space and excels in it very well.

But given that Kashyap's film has unconventional music in Dobaaraa, it can just be called a huge blow. The film could have easily gotten away with the songs composed by Shor Police and Gaurav Chaterji, as they do nothing but make the pace slower. Moreover, most of the emotional songs have a bad landing in the film, making it vanilla.

We have to give it to Shor Police for composing the edgy background score, which blends well with the sequences of the film and makes it an intriguing watch.

When it comes to performances, Taapsee is, of course, the hero of the film, and her emotional journey of finding herself is quite interesting to watch. More so, the actor's calibre of acing any genre makes her an entertainer, indeed. Going by her whole look for the film, the actor makes it edgier and classier.

Even Pavail Gulati, whom people loved to hate in Thappad, brings a mysterious aura to Dobaaraa. The actor plays a cop and willingly helps Taapsee's character to find the truth about herself. His few expressions in sequences give him an emotional depth to his character that equates more or less to that of Taapsee's.

Rahul Bhat, who plays Taapsee's husband in the film, is too funny for words. The actor's comical angle gives a few lighthearted moments in the film, which were not needed, but we ain't complaining.

The other supporting characters, including Nassar, Saswata Chatterjee, Arrian Sawant, and others, do deliver decent performances and come as catalysts to the story.

Anurag Kashyap's direction, as mentioned before, is something new in this space. The filmmaker usually doesn't do remakes, and with this he genuinely brought the time loop in Bollywood back and has passed the litmus test, so to speak.

Dobaaraa should be given a chance to be seen because thrillers are rarely explored in Bollywood, let alone excel at it.

Dobaaraa takes time to establish what the film is all about. In the process, it's easier to guess the plot twist, leaving no room for more mystery to come in. It's an out-and-out Taapsee Pannu show with her living in the world, which is not the usual trope of Anurag Kashyap.