Munjya review: Dinesh Vijan’s latest horror-comedy is neither scary nor funny, goes downhill after 30 minutes

It is based on a Konkan tale which uses the myth of ‘munjya’, an adolescent boy who dies before he is of age, and whose spirit breaks loose in order to fulfil incomplete desires.

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For the first thirty minutes of the two-hour film, I was riveted, as the present day Bittu (Verma) returns to his ancestral village with his mother (Mona Singh) and grandmother (Joshi), where he is confronted by the ‘munjya’, leading to a tragic bump in the road. But after that, it’s all downhill.

Part of the appeal of supernatural tales, if you like this sort of thing, is to wonder just how much lies beneath the surface, and how little we know of our world. Suggestive hints, and flashes of darkness builds suspense, and leads us to the big reveal.

Here, after a shocking twist, the malevolence of the in-you-face ‘munjya’ is actively muted so as to make it more annoying than scary, and that takes away the sting from this stretched-out tale.

In reaching for Casper-the-friendly-ghost territory (or is it the long-fingered Gollum from ‘The Lord Of The Rings’?), ‘Munjya’ loses an opportunity to have created a truly original bad boy whose rancid desire for an older girl keeps it alive all these decades. Its attempts to turn into a family friendly film, makes it neither here nor there.

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After an excellent beginning, the plot begins meandering. You get a hero’s Sardar BFF (Taran Singh), who seems to show up just for laughs. Also thrown in, is a kind of exorcism, helmed by a Jesus loving godman (Sathyaraj) And Bittu’s own romantic tangle, featuring old friend Bela (Sharvari) and her bumbling foreign beau. Equating the ‘munjya’ with heavy-handed patriarchy is underlined, but doesn’t leave any impression.

You feel for the Harry Pottersesque curly-haired, bespectacled Bittu: Verma does earnest-and-bewildered well. As the ‘puran-poli’ making grandma, Joshi stands out. The green Konkan landscape is, as ever, good looking. But, and this goes for the film as a whole, Mona Singh as the supportive-mummy-of-young-hero could have done with better writing: she is capable of being really, truly spiky.

Munjya
Munjya director – Aditya Sarpotdar
Munjya cast – Abhay Verma, Sharvari, Mona Singh, Suhas Joshi, S Sathyaraj, Taran Singh, Bhagyashree
Munjya rating – 2/5