Ek Hasina Thi: A promising Sriram Raghavan film gets derailed in first act, Urmila Matondkar-Saif Ali Khan romance didn’t age well

Director Guillermo del Toro once described suspense as being all about withholding information. Either a character knows something the audience doesn’t, or the audience knows something the character doesn’t. But what if the audience and the characters, both know everything, still the writer assumes they don’t? It’s frustrating. It is unfair to let the lead character drop ‘hints’ (openly declaring he is a gangster and is plotting to win over the girl, only to use her for his ulterior purpose) early on.

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Raghavan made Ek Hasina Thi from a script, which was like a novella when offered to him by another film-making maestro, Anurag Kashyap. So, he, along with Pooja Ladha Surti, wrote the screenplay, dialogues and made it into a proper script, but lagged in turning it into a compelling watch. The film can be divided into three sections: the cringe-worthy love story of Sarika and Karan, Sarika’s jailbreak (the best section) and what happens when an innocent girl turns into a femme fatale.

Urmila Matondkar and Saif Ali Khan in a still from Ek Hasina Thi.

When we meet the female lead Sarika (Urmila), she is smart, intelligent and independent. Living alone in Mumbai, she has learnt to recognise what a man’s intentions are when he offers help, like her prying neighbour. But when suave Karan (Saif) enters her life, we see her as a naive girl who throws critical thinking out of the window. She doesn’t understand the intentions of a stranger, who, often, creepily confesses what games he is playing with her.

You can’t help but cringe over the poor acting of Urmila and Saif as they indulge in creepy romance. You wonder if it is the same Saif who wooed us over with his chocolate boy performance in Kal Ho Naa Ho just a year ago in 2003. When you start to lose interest, Ek Hasina Thi gets on track. Once Raghavan is done with the romance bit, the film gets pacy and the actors show their A-game. We are left amongst a bunch of people who say something, do something else and mean something entirely different. Among this conniving lot is Sarika who pays for being blinded in love.

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It is only halfway through the movie that you connect with innocent Sarika and start caring about what happens to her as Karan gaslights her into accepting a crime she never committed. Raghavan’s direction of Urmila’s time in jail is engrossing and makes you feel sorry for her. Leaving the pastels and whites that depicted her innocence outside the jail, he dresses her in a black t-shirt and grey pyjamas, bringing out both shades of her personality. The timid her, who once could do anything in love, is now seething for revenge. The change in her personality is masterly shown through a shift in her fear of rats and her reaction to ill-treatment. For Raghavan, “One of the USPs of Ek Hasina Thi is the jail sequences.” For me, they are the only good thing about the humdrum script, which keeps you anxious, “What next?”

Urmila Matondkar in Ek Hasina Thi. Express Archive photo *** Local Caption *** Urmila Matondkar in Ek Hasina Thi. Express Archive photo

Towards the climax, as Sarika becomes a predator and preys on everyone responsible for her misery, the film becomes illogical. She manages to kill all the big players of the dreadful underworld, all by herself. Wish Raghavan could have served a better ending and not ruined the tension that started to build up in jail sequences.

Spoiler Alert!

However, Sarika’s final act of revenge is genius. Alert: The sight of rodents crawling inside Karan’s pants might creep you. But, by the time you reach here, the film has run out of steam.

It may have been ahead of its time when it was released two decades ago in 2004, but today, it feels outdated, barely enjoyable and there is no way one could return to it for that tension and suspense which makes a thriller drama worth revisiting.