Director: Kannan Iyer
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Huma Qureshi, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kalki Koechlin
KATHMANDU, April 21: ‘Ek Thi Dayaan’ gets right into the scary part from the beginning. A few minutes into the film, where we’re watching Bobo the Baffler (Emraan) perform his magic tricks, we see flashes of a little girl holding an eerie looking doll. [break]
Bobo’s haunted with scary hallucinations and voices, and he visits the psychiatrist whom he’s known since childhood. We are taken to his childhood in flashback when he goes through hypnosis. We see him and his little sister go down to hell in an elevator. Then enters Diana (Konkona) into their lives, first as a nanny and later as a step mother.
Bobo firmly believes that Diana is a witch, and he continues to be mistrusting and defiant of her as she continues to fuel his beliefs in the calmest way possible. And as Bobo says, “We were playing cat and mouse but it wasn’t clear who the cat was and who was the mouse.” They maintain a cat mouse relationship, and eventually he is taken to a psychiatrist who dismisses his claims.
The film revolves around the age old legends of daayans (witches) whose powers were said to be hidden in their long hair. Konkona is credibly scary and there are some hair raising moments in the film aided by shrill laughter and sudden flashes. But the second half ruins the prospects of the entire film and towards the end; the film is completely messed up. Seeing the daayan crawl down the building wall stops being frightening.
Bobo’s supportive girlfriend and later wife, Huma, has a believable role in the film but the same cannot be said for Kalki, who is wasted in her role as the suspected daayan. Also, the moniker ‘Bobo’ is quite distracting and even funny during certain scenes in the film.
Screening at QFX Cinemas
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