Jaane Jaan Star Cast/ Actors: Kareena Kapoor Khan as Maya D’Souza, Jaideep Ahlawat as Naren Vyas, and Vijay Varma as Inspector Karan Anand
Jaane Jaan Director: Sujoy Ghosh
Jaane Jaan Release Date: 21 September, 2023
Jaane Jaan Available On: Netflix
Jaane Jaan Released/Available In Languages: Hindi
Jaane Jaan OTT Platform: Netflix
Jaane Jaan Runtime: 139 minutes
Jaane Jaan Critic Review:
It’s a misty line between a mathematics genius and a nut case, between discomforting obsession and self-destructive devotion. But a stark line between a crime of passion and a calculated one.
The gorgeous Maya D’Souza (Kareena Kapoor) who runs Tiffin, an eatery in Kalimpong, commits a crime of the former variety when she and her daughter Tara (Naisha Khanna) unwittingly put an end to the abusive husband from the past, Ajit Mhatre (Saurabh Sachdeva). So revolting a man that you’d want to clobber him too. But it’s cold calculation when her neighbour, Mathematics Professor Naren (Jaideep Ahlawat) steps in to cover up her crime.
Writer-director Sujoy Ghosh who deftly laid out intrigue in Kahaani (the original one in 2012) and neatly switched the gender of the original Spanish film The Invisible Guest to serve a very watchable Badla in 2019, comes up trumps once again.
The Devotion Of Suspect X, the 2017 Mandarin adaptation of the Japanese crime thriller authored by Keigo Higashino, is a title that aptly sums up the plot of Ghosh’s latest thriller.
With ‘Aa jaane jaan’, the 1969 Lata Mangeshkar chartbuster from the film Intequam, softly lingering in the background, Ghosh’s flashes of a young woman pole dancing sensuously and the few shots of a violent Ajit Mhatre, suffice to script Maya’s past and what she has escaped from to make a new life for Tara and herself.
Looking stunning enough for the professor and for investigating officer Karan Anand (Vijay Varma) to desire Maya’s proximity in their own different ways, Sujoy leaves a few threads dangling before tying them up somewhere down the narration.
Opening shots of the professor putting a noose around his neck. Of watching Maya and Tara through a hole in the wall. Brief glimpses of the mathematical genius who sets tough, unsolvable papers in his quest to make students think their way around a problem with laser-focus, the zen-like calm of ju-jitsu, an unkempt apartment, a chess board, a Bruce Lee poster and cupboards full of maths tomes, a sweeping mention of a problem he took ten years to solve only to find some other genius had beaten him to it by 48 hours, all add up stealthily.
Chess, logic, maths, moves and strategy. Crime and crime busting require the same set of skills.
Overarching adoration moves without logic, yet there’s calculation even in self-destruction.
With Avik Mukhopadhyay’s camerawork providing the misty mood, Sujoy Ghosh makes a seamless introduction to his main trio – Maya, Professor and Karan, and keeps his cast uncluttered with the focus on his three main players. She has committed a crime, the neighbour is protective of her, the policeman sniffs the murder trail.
To thicken the plot, Naren and Karan are college friends, the cop in awe of the prof’s mathematical brain.
A brain that sets the terms and helps Karan crack the case.
There is a lovely scene of the two in martial arts mode, silent, strong, unyielding.
It is reflective of their performances too. It is undoubtedly Jaideep Ahlawat’s film, the actor making himself look as unpresentable as the constant sense of creepiness around him. But Vijay Varma provides the perfect foil, never once losing his ground, a man Maya could flirt with or mess with. Kareena Kapoor carries mystery around her, always giving the feeling there’s more to Maya.
With such perfect casting, Sujoy Ghosh pulls off yet another engaging thriller.
Jaane Jaan- Watch Or Not?: Catch it for Jaideep Ahlawat.
Jaane Jaan Review Score Rating: 3 out of 5 (i.e. 3/5)
Jaane Jaan Official Trailer:
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