A scary, faithful remake
knows where they are headed.
Based on Mike Flanagan’s supernatural thriller Oculus (2013), Dobaara is the re-imagination of events that took place in Natasha and Kabir’s childhood. Their parents, Alex (Adil Hussain) and Lisa Merchant (Lisa Ray), are going through a bad marriage and Alex is losing touch with reality. There on, it’s a see-saw between minds and you witness it with bated breath and clutched seat handles.
It’s a faithful remake of Oculus and can make your hair stand at times. Hindi filmmakers rarely achieve such finesse in mostly predictable paranormal stories. Feel the chills.
The beautiful Manisha Koirala returns to the silver screen after a long and successful battle against cancer. And she makes for an evocative lead in Sunaina Bhatnagar’s Dear Maya The film is about a lonely old woman who has given up on life. Maya Devi is distrusting and sad; her glass is always half empty.
Then, schoolgirls Ira and Ana (Shreya Chaudhary and Madiha Imam) decide to add colour to her life by writing love letters to the spinster signed by a fictitious ‘Ved’. The film traces the transformation of the reclusive woman as the letters keep coming, and the lessons the two schoolgirls learn as a result.
Manisha shines throughout. As she goes from all-black with a dagger dangling at her waist to smiling, confident and clothed in red, her subtlety brings the relatively simple tale to life.
Where the film falters is in its