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Murder, intrigue, suspense: ‘Monica O My Darling’ aims at giving you thrills and spills, and pretty much hits its mark.
Robotics expert Jayant Arkhedkar (Rajkummar Rao) is an ambitious man, determined to put his mundane life behind him. When the film opens, it shows him heading straight to the stratosphere, hoicked to a top job in his company, the founder of said company gaga over him, and daughter of said founder enamoured of him. ‘Naukri, ladki, sab kuchh’. You’d think, as would Jayant, that all will henceforth be a bed of roses. But as we know, the best laid plans of mice and men, and in this instance a few reptilian creatures, can and do, go awry. Murders are committed, things go south, and hit rockbottom with an almighty clang.
Director Vasan Bala’s penchant for whackiness (‘Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota’) is evident right from the beginning. A gruesome killing is served as an aperitif, even before we’ve properly settled down. And for the main course, we get misbegotten lust, femme fatales who sway to the one of the most famous cabaret numbers in Hindi cinema (Piya Tu Ab Toh Aaja), and a killer whose biggest achilles heel is his vanity.
The proceedings remind you a bit of twisty James Hadley Chase novels. All characters are immoral or plain crooked. And so of course, there’s a flash of ‘Johnny Gaddar’, Sriram Raghavan’s terrific thriller about a heist gone wrong. You can see traces of other well-known films: the director and writer Yogesh Chandekar are clearly Bollywood fanboys, but when they put their paws on an immortal scene from ‘Maqbool’, you want to tell them to back off. Some things can not be improved.
And that’s the thing with ‘Monica’. If your USP is being whacked-out, then you have to make sure that nothing slackens. This is even underlined in the film, when one character says to another, ‘dheel nahin dene ka, tight rakhne ka’, or words to that effect. But that ‘dheel’ does occur in bits, especially when a pudgy accountant with a glad eye (Bagavathi Perumal) overstays his welcome on screen, and your attention starts to wander.
It’s not like this interesting ensemble cast isn’t working hard to keep a hold on you: Rajkummar Rao is reliably solid, Sikandar Kher livens things up, Sukant Goel as a resentful colleague feeling done in by his co-workers is appropriately shifty. Akansha Ranjan as the rich girl who feels she owns her man leaves a mark, as does Zayn Marie Khan, even if her character is a trifle vague around the edges.
Huma Qureshi plays the titular character Monica Macchado, the oomphy secretary who serves the robotics company with a great deal of zeal, and spreads her favours amongst so many senior male employees that you lose track. And then there is ACP Naidu (Radhika Apte) who is assigned to the case, who strides about flinging orders at a male subordinate. Apte has such a blast with the female version of the standard quirky cop that you wish she had more to do.
Every time things slowed down, I would stifle impatience, but then they would leap up again, and it would be fine. On the whole, and despite those slow spots, and a few twists which we figure long before the characters do, with a cracker of a beginning and an end which slithers in most unexpectedly, ‘Monica’ ends up being a fun watch.
Monica O My Darling movie cast: Rajkummar Rao, Huma Qureshi, Radhika Apte, Akansha Ranjan, Bagavathi Perumal, Zayn Marie Khan, Sukant Goel, Sikandar Kher
Monica O My Darling movie director: Vasan Bala
Monica O My Darling movie rating: 2.5 stars
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