Hullabaloo over consensual sex
Hear ye! Hear ye! A kangaroo court of sorts is in progress at the cool office of a Mumbai ad agency. The accused is alleged to be a slimeball. And the complainant is a bombshell who claims she has been sexually harassed. Wow, hot stuff ?
Hardly. Inkaar, directed and co-written by Sudhir Mishra, may be thematically significant since it deals with the exploitation of women at the workplace, but it’s the director’s tamest work yet. It’s just not in the league of his Hazaaron Khwaishein
Aisi or Yeh Saali Zindagi — primarily because it is overloaded with pingponging flashbacks, toothpick thin content and, at times, seems to be located in the last millennium.
The closed-door meeting structure may have suited the classic Twelve Angry
Men, but here it’s stifling. And how the complainant levels charges and the accused responds sepa
rately before the adjudicator, seems like a miracle in athletics. In course of the very first day of the threeday session, the two zip in and out, individually, of the boardroom without fatigue.
So what’s the hullabaloo about anyway? Rahul (Arjun Rampal) the mentor, and Maya (Chitrangada Singh) his protegee, have had a cataclysmic fall-out after months. if not years, of consensual sex. He’s the CEO, but she’s zoomed ahead, since she’s been given a kursi on the board of directors. Rahul believes she’s not yet ready for the chair, Maya is sure he’s envious and is tripping her en route to more glorious heights. It happens.
A bald-pated baddy called Mr John from New York is involved. Rahul is convinced Maya slept with the agency’s American supremo boss during a visit to the Bada Apple, and so gives her those sour lemon looks. Next: She’s had enough, thus the court topped by a social service group’s lady (Deepti Naval). Quite inevitably, like us, after hearing out the war of words, she declares, “I am very confused.” Quite right.
On the upside, Mishra’s take on the ad world has its incisive moments — like stealing of ideas and concepts for campaigns, obsession for promotions, backbitings and the spillover of work to boozy nights at boss’ apartment. A sequence with clients in Bangkok is marvellous. Care is taken to narrate backstories to the characters of Rahul and Maya, both from small towns.
Their adaptation to the rigours of a metropolis could have been elaborated a bit, but the screenplay, co-written by Manoj Tyagi, appears to be in a tearing hurry to return to the boardroom. Songs are plonked into the background score, unless you count the quasi-item number by Saurabh Shukla.
Of the cast, Vipin Sharma as an irascible adman, who enjoys watching the showdown between his superiors, delivers the most impressive performance of the lot. The camera loves Arjun Rampal and Chitrangada Singh: They exude glamour and pizzazz. But neither are convincing, coming up with strictly one-note, unlayered performances.