Andhadhun

<p>-based Akash Saraf is an up-and-coming pianist who fakes being blind as an experiment to improve his piano skills. One day, while crossing the street, he is knocked over by Sophie. She helps him up and learns that he is a pianist. Sophie is impressed by Akash’s talent and gets him an engagement at her father’s diner. Akash usually wears opaque lenses to practice playing piano, but after meeting Sophie, he is tempted to look at her. He stops wearing his opaque lenses and simply pretends to be blind. They both soon begin a romantic relationship. At the dinner, a retired actor, Pramod Sinha, notices Akash and invites him to give a private performance for his . Akash arrives at the Sinhas’ flat and Pramod’s wife Simi opens the door. Simi, to avoid a nosy neighbour who happened to be watching and seeing that Akash is blind, lets Akash in to play the piano. Akash sees a dead body nearby, which he realizes is Pramod’s, but has to feign ignorance and continue to play to keep up his act of being blind. He also sees Manohar, Simi’s paramour, hiding in the bathroom with a gun. Simi and Manohar clean the crime scene and stuff the body into a while Akash plays. Akash sits on a bench to take everything in. Then, he sees a seller, Sakhu who has a tattoo sells a lottery ticket to Ayush without really giving him the choice but tells her to call a in return to which she calls Murli, an auto-rickshaw driver who has photo on the back of his auto. Akash tries to report the murder to the police but is dissuaded when he discovers that Manohar is a police inspector over there, and makes up lies about his cat being missing. Meanwhile, Simi overhears her elderly neighbour, Mrs. D’Sa, talking to a police officer about seeing an unknown man going to the Sinhas’ flat the day of Pramod’s murder. Simi later kills Mrs. D’Sa by pushing her off the ledge of their apartment. Akash happens to witness upon arrival to give piano lessons to Pramod’s daughter, but is forced to continue feigning blindness. A neighbour’s child, suspicious of Akash’s blindness, records a video of Akash fully able to see. Simi goes to Akash’s house and hands him the temple’s offerings as Akash makes coffee for them. After poisoning his coffee, she observes him carefully and busts his act after he spills the on purpose. Akash says he will leave for London and keep Simi’s secret, but gets drugged by the offerings. The neighbour’s child shows the video to Sophie. As she arrives, Simi arranges things to make it look like she and Akash had slept together. Furious and heartbroken, Sophie leaves. When he wakes up, he realises that he has been blinded by Simi. Manohar enters Akash’s house to kill him, but he barely escapes, and faints after hitting a telephone pole. Akash wakes up in an illegal organ harvesting clinic run by Dr. Swami. He and his assistants Murli, the rickshaw driver and Sakhu, the lottery ticket seller decide to spare Akash when Akash tells Sakhu has a Lord Shiva tattoo which he saw before being blind and it shocks the 3 as Akash was blind. The next morning, Akash tells everything about Murli too, Akash also tells them about the murder secret from which could earn them millions They kidnap Simi, stage her suicide scene, and blackmail Manohar. However, Murli and Sakhu double-cross Akash, tie him up with Simi, and plan to take the money for themselves. At the rendezvous, Manohar shoots Murli but is trapped in an elevator and accidentally shoots and kills himself. The money is revealed to be counterfeit. Simi helps Akash free himself and he removes her blindfold. While he is trying to find an escape for the both of them, Simi frees herself and attacks him. Swami enters; after a brief fight, he and Akash knock Simi out, tie her up in the boot of a car, and drive away. Swami reveals that Simi has a rare blood type and that her organs would sell for millions; he also plans to use her corneas to restore Akash’s sight. Simi awakens in the boot, and when Swami stops the car to sedate her again, she overpowers him and seizes the wheel. Akash, thinking Swami is still driving, pleads to release Simi. Two years later at a gig in , Sophie finds Akash. Akash explains to her the whole story. In a flashback, we are shown that She drops Akash off and tries to run him over, but a hare hits the windshield of the car, causing Simi to lose control and die when the car crashes and bursts into flames. Sophie tells him he should have listened to Swami. Akash continues along, knocking a can away from his path with his , hinting that he did take Simi’s cornea. The cast is listed below: Director-writer Sriram Raghavan saw ( ), a 2010 French short film about a blind pianist, in 2013 at the recommendation of his friend, filmmaker . Raghavan said although his film is different, the French film was its “basic germ”. He wanted Rao to write a script based on the short but Rao was directing a film of his own. Raghavan then worked on (2015) and had the “gist of the story”. After reading about , which is also about a blind man, he was about to start writing but stopped, thinking having two films about blind people would be “crazy”. Raghavan later resumed the script, taking a different approach. The idea of a blind pianist performing while a body is being dumped and a crime scene cleaned up fascinated Raghavan, who had written a similar scene for his previous film, (2012), in which a blind girl plays the piano while surrounded by mayhem. Raghavan wrote the script with Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar, Rao and Pooja Ladha Surti. He gave the story idea to while they were working on but Dhawan became busy with other films and the script was left unfinished. Negotiations with and also fell through. Raghavan discussed the scenes with the writers, who reacted as viewers. Raghavan and Biswas were unhappy while translating the dialogue from English to Hindi because they thought in English. Raghavan told Biswas to write the dramatic dialogue in Bengali, which was “at least the Indian idiom”. Surti wrote another version of the dialogue because her Hindi was better than that of the others. Raghavan cited the 1996 film and as an inspiration, calling them “realistic and yet … bizarre”. One of his friends was in a situation similar to one in the film; he then realised old Hindi films use “piano songs” and decided make the blind pianist the main character. heard about the film from casting directors and . He contacted Raghavan, expressing interest in working on it. Raghavan conducted screen tests of the scene in which the protagonist wakes up blind: “There were two pieces – when you are acting blind and when you are actually blind, and we tried both. I wanted to see what the difference in his body language would be.” Khurrana, who played the piano in the film, met several blind students and observed “how [a blind pianist] plays, conducts and moves his hands”. Khurrana studied piano for four hours daily under Akshay Verma, a pianist based in , and did not use a in the film. He called it the “most challenging role” of his career. Raghavan told Khurrana not to watch films with a blind protagonist and took him to the National School of the Blind. He said, “Since no two persons are the same, I picked up the nuances, learnt how to hold the stick and climb the stairs”. Khurrana made omelettes and walked on the street blindfolded. He was given a pair of special lenses that impaired his vision by around 80 percent. His body language changed because he could no longer see properly. After wearing the black glasses, his vision was affected by 90 percent and he shot the entire film like that. Raghavan called , who agreed to play Khurrana’s love interest. Several scenes were improvised. was Raghavan’s first choice for Simi. He did not brief her about scenes and they “kept developing [the character] as it went”. played a former actor, a version of himself. Raghavan said he wanted to make a “fun sort of thriller” to follow . According to him, is not a ; “ … The audience knows all along what’s happening and why. It’s the characters who don’t.” Raghavan and the film’s decided to “restrict everything to Akash’s point of view” so the audience could see what Akash sees. There were no close-ups in the piano-playing scene, which was extensively rehearsed with several assistants to fit its timing into the four-minute piano piece. It was not rehearsed with the actors; Raghavan told them to “just do the scene” and gave them a time frame; “We didn’t want it to look practiced; we needed that uncertainty”. The film’s first shot was rehearsed with Khurrana for three months. Raghavan called “a fun film in the macabre sense of the word”, with moments of “wickedness and brutality”. Raghavan wanted the film to have an open ending and considered several options. Both the and production teams were apprehensive about the audience acceptance of an open ending but Raghavan persuaded them. Its working title was , which was changed because the producers felt an English title would “alienate people”. The title is a play on the word , which means reckless or relentless, and “a play on blind tune and trance”. The film was edited by Surti, and Snigdha Karmahe, Pankaj Pol and Anita Donald were its production designers. The film was shot in , , over 44 days across more than a year, with principal photography beginning in June 2017 and concluding on 17 July 2018. Filming locations included Prabhat Road , where the protagonist’s residence is located, as well as and Victory Theatre in the . Portions of the film involving the characters Pramod Sinha and Simi were shot in . The title track of the soundtrack of was composed and written by and Girish Nakod, and composed the remainder of it. The album’s lyrics were written by , Raftaar and Nakod. It was released on 5 September 2018 on the record label. Vocals were provided by Trivedi, Raftaar, Ayushmann Khurrana, , Abhijeet Srivastava, Aakansha Sharma, Shadab Faridi and Altamash Faridi. The background score was composed by Daniel B. George. The album received a mainly positive response from critics. was scheduled for release on 31 August 2018 but its release was postponed until 5 October; the producers announced the delay in a trailer. Raghavan originally wanted the film’s trailer to only contain sounds because it is the story of a blind man but the studio was “shocked” at his suggestion. After several discussions, they agreed on a trailer. Raghavan “didn’t want to give away too many things about the film” in the trailer and the studio eventually accepted his view. The trailer was released on 2 September 2018. The film was released on 800 screens across India, and is available on and . It was screened at the 2019 where Tabu was honoured. was released in China as on 3 April 2019. On 28 August 2019, the film was released in South Korea in over 90 screens. On the website , holds a rating of 100% based on 15 reviews, with an of 7.7/10. garnered widespread critical acclaim. of rated the film 5 out of 5 stars and called it a “rare treat” and a film that is “so compelling that it may universally be considered irresistible”. of rated the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and wrote “Sriram Raghavan’s should rank among the most fascinating and fun suspense thrillers ever to emerge from Bollywood”. Sukanya Verma of rated the film 4.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ” is a stunning, comic, grisly, absurd, intense, cold, crazy”. of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote, “Watch with your ears, eyes and minds open. You will come away with your senses heightened.” of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and called it a film with “many pleasures … chief among them is the thrill of being constantly surprised”. He praised Khurrana’s and Tabu’s performances, calling them “in solid form” and “towering”. Renuka Vyavahare of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and gave the film a positive review, calling it an “engaging thriller that keeps you on your toes and leaves you guessing all the way”. Umesh Punwani of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote ” also proves one thing why no high budget is required when you’ve such a strong script in hand”. IANS of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and wrote “Director Sriram Raghavan’s is a taut, skillful and surgically effective murder mystery”. Ankur Pathak of cited it as “the best film of 2018 so far” and “a film worth watching and then rewatching”. Shilajit Mitra of rated the film 4 out of 5 stars and said in a review that “Raghavan creates a world interchangeably familiar and pulpy” in which he “strings together ingenious set-pieces and populates them with wryly-written characters”. of rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and called “racy, pacy and appropriately pulpy” but said it becomes a “tad heavy-handed and dull” after a while. Devesh Shamrma of rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote ” has a zig zag storyline and spot on acting by the entire cast. It”s one of those mysteries which you”ll like to go back to despite knowing the ending”. Shibaji Roychoudhury of said the second half was predictable and “falls flat” but called the film “thrilling, full of compelling performances and exceptional sound design that will keep you at the edge of your seat”. Sushant Mehta of rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote, “Raghavan’s ability to shock an entire cinema hall including the most immovable, emotionless fan coupled with his ability to make the audience laugh during these moments where your heart is in your mouth defines his unique brand of cinema”. Nandini Ramnath of rated the film 3.5 out of 5 stars and wrote that the film has a “strong flavour of the at their peak, but also enough nods to Raghavan’s longstanding interest in the dynamics of the perfect crime and the hustlers and flimflam artists who populate pulp detective stories”. She said although the film’s runtime was a stretch, it “slides into place as smoothly as one of Akash’s piano pieces”. wrote, “The surroundings – high-rises, leafy streets and old houses in Pune – seem perfectly normal but what’s happening inside is deliciously twisted. There’s murder, betrayal, sex and a mountain of lies. In short, you can’t look away.” Udita Jhunjhunwala of praised Khurrana’s acting, calling it a “taut performance that balances vulnerability with craftiness”, and said Tabu “runs away with the show”. Shaheen Irani of wrote, “Sriram has done a fab job in keeping dark humour intact with several quirky and surprise elements that will make you cover your face too”. Troy Ribeiro of called the film a “taut, skillful and surgically effective murder mystery” and said; “For most of its length, functions so efficiently that we put the cause and its effects on hold and go with the action”. Manjusha Radhakrishnan of described the film as an “unapologetic celebration of vitriol, darkness and mean-spiritedness”. wrote, “While seemingly giving things away, Raghavan is actually always a step ahead of the viewers in the cat-and-mouse game”. Poulomi Das of also gave a positive review, saying; “The film is all about clever writing, top-notch execution, and hard-hitting social commentary – but it is also a triumph of casting, and an ode to actors”. Shilpa Jamkhandikar of said ” ticks all the right boxes” that should be “savoured.” Kumar Shyam of wrote, “Drawing the viewers into multiple situations of right and wrong, black and white and then shades of grey, the climax also ends on a similar note with a deliberate climax, typical Hitchcockian, between salvation and revelation”. Stutee Ghosh of said, ” deserves praise and full attention … Make sure to not miss anything, not the opening scene nor the end credits”. Anita Iyer of called the film a “crisply-edited, fast-paced narrative that keeps you on the edge of the seat throughout”. J. Hurtado of said; ” shows that this veteran director knows how to make this kind of twisty genre gem better than almost anyone in India”. He included it in his list of 14 Favorite Indian Films of 2018. earned (US$365,553.19) on its first day of release. The film’s box office take increased with positive word of mouth and it grossed (US$745,728.51) on its second day. It earned (US$2.19 million) in its first weekend and grossed (US$6.01 million) in ten days. The film became profitable before its theatrical release through the sale of its satellite television rights, which were sold to . At the end of its six-week theatrical run, had earned (US$14.77 million) at the box office, mainly from . The film also did well internationally, earning (US$1.52 million). Prior to its release in China, had grossed (US$15.5 million) worldwide, including (US$13.98 million) in India and (US$1.52 million) overseas. In China, the film surpassed its Indian lifetime collection within six days. has grossed (US$47.57 million) in China, for a worldwide total of (US$64.88 million). In 2021, was remade in as and in as . A remake, , was released in 2024.</p>