Farhana (2023) :
Movie Review -
Nelson Venkatesan's Farhana is a female-led thriller starring Aishwarya Rajesh in the lead. Farhana is set in a Muslim ghetto, which gives it a certain sensibility to handle this sensitive topic. But the conflicts and conclusion are both too soapy and childish for a female-led film of today's era. Remember the Bollywood classic The Lunchbox? Two strangers engage in a conversation and build a bond around them, but they can't attain the immortality of this unknown relationship. Farhana was somewhere similar, with the call centre replacing the lunchbox thing, but the directions are totally different in the second half. Not just different, but very dull. Something we saw in Shah Rukh Khan's Fan (2016), when a desire for one meeting turns into an obsession. Farhana is a mixed bag that doesn't get either thing right. It's a half-baked script with a clueless screenplay and a soapy presentation.
The film is about a Muslim woman, Farhana (Aishwarya Rajesh), whose husband is jobless, and so she has to step out of the house for the income. She gets a job in a call centre as a credit card seller. But the income is not that fancy. After looking at some girls in the office who are living fancy lives and earning more, Farhana wishes to join their department. Despite several warnings from her colleague, she joins the department and is blown away by the sexually disturbing world of phone sex. Uncomfortable Farhana finds a new comfort with a caller named Dhayalan (Selvaraghavan), who shares a deep and moving conversation with her. After talking over the phone for many days, they decide to meet each other on Eid's auspicious day. Farhana has to leave her date incomplete as she learns about the death of her colleague, Sofia (Aishwarya Dutta). This makes Dhayalan very angry, and his desire to meet her becomes an obsession, and he starts blackmailing her. Will Farhana find a way to stop him and keep her job?
Nelson Venkatesan's script looks interesting in the beginning when you see Farhana getting involved in formal sessions with an unknown guy. I thought the movie was about exposing the racket, which cons call centre girls and then kills or rapes them. It did even reach the point, but then shifted the directions to an aimless path. First, a married woman can't be such a fool to believe someone's voice and even fall in love. If yes, then she is a fool, and sorry, I can't feel any sympathy for a fool woman. The protagonist's theory went wrong here. Second, the antagonist's being so stubborn about one thing is too much. If he knows that he can easily find the girl by keeping a watch on her and blackmail her by threatening to leave the call records, why didn't he realise that the woman can do the same things too? What's the intelligent, dramatic part here? Third, why was Farhana's husband so useless? Did it make any sense to see his character accept every situation with no anger, pain, or reluctance? He was blinder than Kanoon, I guess.
Aishwarya Rajesh delivers an honest performance, but somewhere the impact is missing. The character graph doesn't really allow her to go out of the way, even while dealing with highly emotional scenes. For a change, she excels in uninteresting scenes, such as breaking down during a phone call and reacting to instant motions. Selvaraghavan comes too late to the party, so naturally, he doesn't really offer anything. Most of the time, it's his voice that you know, and certainly, you can't judge someone's acting through his voice without seeing his face and expressions. Jithan Ramesh does well in his role, while Aishwarya Dutta looks tremendously glamorous in her sexy role. Anumol's support is fine too, and the rest of the cast has done decent.
Justin Prabhakaran's music doesn't really score well enough. The camerawork of Gokul Benoy captures a few good frames in close shots and pan shots otherwise. The runtime of 2 hours and 18 minutes really bores you with so many slow moments and tedious segments. It could have been trimmed by 15-20 minutes, and then, I guess, I would have had a little more fun while watching it. Nelson Venkatesan's script is more disappointing than his direction. This is a well-written daily soap unfit for a feature film, especially in today's time when feminist films have become more sensible and hard-hitting. As a whole, Farhana attempts to be a sensation but transforms itself into a senseless and boring drama.
RATING - 4/10*
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