Movie Review: Jigra | Alia Bhatt, Vasan Bala

“How do I look?” Satya asks sentry at the jail where her brother is being held. The elder sister does not wish to look like all hope is lost. She tidies up, and puts on a semblance of a smile as she walks in to face her brother Ankur. This, and the couple of minutes preceding, as she rushes into the jail hoping she is within visitation hours, is one of the most fascinating scenes I may have seen in a while where an artist, in this case, Alia Bhatt, stamps her class. In another scene, she tells her brother, “Tu mere protection mein hai.” And it feels like she means it, her size and persona irrespective.

Of course, you don’t have to wait until these scenes, both much later in the film, to understand the context or emotion the film intends to project. Director Vasan Bala sets that up right in the first scene when he shows two kids walking about a staircase, the elder, sister, coaxing the brother to tell her who bullied him assuring him they will be. The protective sister is established and with good impact.

Much later in the story, Satya reiterates there is no moral justification to what she is about to do – unleashing anarchy! “Main koi achi insaan  nahi hoon” she stresses. She only intends to save her brother – at any cost. The film, like Animal (2023), does not intend to glorify character. If put in the same world, maybe Ranvijay Singh (Ranbir Kapoor in Animal) and Satya (Alia Bhatt in Jigra) could well be friends.

For the uninformed, Jigra is about two orphans – a sister who goes all out to save her brother, who has been framed in a drug abuse case in a hostile country. She won’t stop at anything – even if that means blowing up the entire jail. And she forms motley crew with people harboring similar motives.

Vasan’s meticulously builds a world that feels all too familiar; an island, Hanshi Dao, that seems like a cross between Singapore and China. A territory that’s not quite friendly towards India and has an extremely strict policy against substance abuse. And he does not stop at just that. Vasan goes ahead and adds geo politics and inland conflict in the story – something we rarely see in Indian movies, save ones like Kabali, in which the tension between immigrant communities in Malaysia served as a backdrop. And this adds the extra zing to the screenplay.

And then there is, much like his indulgent mentor Anurag Kashyap tendency, plenty of hat-tipping from Vasan added into his script. In fact, the number of homages could well warrant a separate essay! From Manoj Pahwa wearing a t-shirt that reads “Urf Professor”, to the jailor being named Landa – remember Christpher Waltz’s Oscar winning act in Inglorious Bastards? Not to mention, inmates in the jail are named Wong Kar Wai and John Woo! Tad too much?  And then, Vasan’s love for old Hindi music – as was seen in his earlier outing Monica O’ My Darling – and how that fits into Jigra’s screenplay with songs like Chakku Churiya and Yaari Hai Imaan – both incidentally from Zanjeer, Salim-Javed’s first script! Just a coincidence? Of course not!

Sibling drama, action set pieces, indulgent throwbacks… a mix of this and some of that… all of it put together what we have is… a beast which moves, but maybe not at a satisfactory pace. The indulgence seems to add weight beyond the capabilities of the story, which, beyond everything extra, is about a sister whose entire world is her brother and her only objective is to save him from the guillotine at any cost. I would not judge you if you check the watch to get a sense of time, somewhere in the second half.

But the lack of pace is more than made up for by stellar performances and brilliant cinematography. And she is not alone. Rookie Vedang Raina is pretty convincing. And then there are equally good performances from Manoj Pahwa, Rahul Ravindran and Vivek Gomber, who plays the jailer.

For people used the usual, Jigra might come as a twister. It challenges conventional notions of heroism, showcasing a woman who defies societal expectations and takes matters into her own hands. Alia Bhatt is not quite the alpha male Sunny Deol who looks capable of uproot a tree and taking on a hundred commandos in hand combat But if you are open to accepting that grit can overcome other handicaps, Alia is convincing enough.

For me, Jigra is a complete cinematic spectacle. It is the cinema of the yore. As ‘larger than life’ as it gets, while staying real and delivering every bit of the emotion a 70s drama did. Jigra should soon be available on a streaming platform. But its true joy could have only been felt on the big screen.

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