Navras Katha Collage Film Review: An Emotional Rollercoaster that Misses a Few Stops

🤪👎👎½👍👍 (2.5 out of 5 stars)

🙋‍♀️Greetings, earthlings! It’s your Bollywood oracle, Review Rani, here to spill the chai on this week’s silver screen spectacle – the anthology of anthologies, the emotional rollercoaster, the buffet of sentiments – ‘Navras Katha Collage’. So, strap in, keep your barf bags ready, and let’s dive into the nine emotional puddles this film flaunts. 🌈

The film, much like my neighbour’s teenage daughter’s poetry project, attempts to spin tales around the nine renowned emotions, or ‘Navras’ as the Sanskrit scholars like to call them. The emotions being love, laughter, anger, fear, courage, peace, disgust, surprise, and sorrow (a hearty serving of the last one, I assure you). Each tale, clocking around 15-20 minutes, features the same lad portraying a different emotion, a feat previously attempted and aced by the legendary Sanjeev Kumar. But here’s the kicker – our star man, Praveen Hingonia, who also happens to be the director of this emotional circus, manages to hit the bullseye on a couple of occasions, but mostly fires blanks, leaving the movie feeling like a seesaw that’s lost its balance.

The movie kickstarts with the tale of Koyal, an adopted daughter of a eunuch who goes to absurd lengths to keep her happy after her husband bails on her. The next in line is Ruhana’s story, a rape survivor who is haunted by the spectres of her rapists begging for forgiveness, because apparently, even ghosts have a conscience. The narrative of a woman working for a domestic violence NGO and a Punjabi mother’s quest to find her son imprisoned in Pakistan are some of the few redeeming stories. The rest, however, are as exciting as watching paint dry.

Praveen Hingonia dons the hats of a eunuch, a lover, a rapist, a patriot, a struggling actor, a romantic husband, a caring spouse, and a father seeking validation from his son. But alas, despite his dramatic wardrobe, his performance is as memorable as my last dentist appointment.

The predictability of the stories is as surprising as finding aloo in my samosa, making it a yawn-inducing ordeal to sit through. The story of the rapists is as abstract as a Picasso painting, and the tale of Purushottam, the struggling actor, leaves you as sympathetic as a cat watching a mouse drown. The film does feature a few strong character actors like Sheeba Chaddha, Rajesh Sharma, and Dayanand Shetty, but their talents are as underused as my gym membership.

__Rani’s Wrap-Up:__ In the words of my yoga instructor, ‘Navras Katha Collage’ is a pose that’s too ambitious for its flexibility. The film stretches itself thin in a daring attempt to encapsulate the human emotional spectrum, but ends up pulling a muscle. The result? A collage that’s less of an artistic masterpiece, and more of an emotional jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces.🧩😏

Namaste and happy viewing, folks! Until next time, this is Review Rani, signing out with a smile, a smirk, and a hearty sigh. 🙏🎬🍿👋