Bhediya movie review: Horror comedy that marginalises the people of Arunachal while opposing marginalisation

Cast: Varun Dhawan, Abhishek Banerjee, Kriti Sanon, Paalin Kabaak, Deepak Dobriyal, Saurabh Shukla 

Director: Amar Kaushik

Language: Hindi

How do you marginalise the people of already marginalised communities, while opposing their marginalisation with what appears to be positive intentions? For a guide to doing so, watch Bhediya (Wolf).

The film takes its title from the beast at the centre of its plot. It is set in India’s North-East, a region that Hindi cinema visits only rarely, and then too usually to exoticise and other its people, sometimes – as in this case – simultaneously criticising that exoticisation and othering. Bhediya looks set to be different in an early scene in which the hero, Bhaskar (played by Varun Dhawan), rolls his eyes at his cousin Janardan (Abhishek Banerjee) for his ignorance about the North-East at large. So far so good, but shortly thereafter, a racist “chowmein” joke is written into the script, signalling the inconsistency that remains consistent throughout the politics of the rest of the narrative.

The story is set in Arunachal Pradesh, which Bhaskar a.k.a. Bhaski visits as a representative of a construction company that plans to build a road through forest areas. Janardan a.k.a. JD accompanies him. Their associate among the locals is a youngster called Jomin (Paalin Kabaak). There’s also the enigmatic Panda ji (Deepak Dobriyal) who is originally from north India but is now rooted in his life in Arunachal. Jomin often dismisses Panda as an outsider although we see this man from the start batting for the state and siding with the Apatani tribals’ concerns about environmental preservation, while Jomin strategises with Bhaskar to combat the Apatanis’ objections.

As you already know from the trailer, Bhaskar is bitten by a wolf one night and is transformed into a man-eating, shape-shifting animal, making this an apt addition to the filmography of Amar Kaushik who rose to prominence by directing another horror comedy, 2018’s lovely Stree written by Raj and DK. Bhediya is written by Niren Bhatt who wrote the director’s2019 film Bala with Ayushmann Khurrana.

There’s a clear and simple balance sheet that can be drawn up for Bhediya. The 3D works. The CGI, prosthetics, lighting and action are impressive. The sound design by Kunal Sharma is understated. The music by Sachin-Jigar is lively when it is not being appropriately haunting. The background score matches the film’s most ruminative moments especially when it is overlaid on stunning views of Arunachal’s landscapes captured strikingly by DoP Jishnu Bhattacharjee’s camera. Bhediya is also often funny. It stumbles and tumbles relentlessly though in its representation of the people of Arunachal, thus vastly diluting the impact of its arguments on ecological degradation. While this is its overriding flaw, there’s also occasional sloppy editing, the blandness of its sole primary woman character, a completely contrived culmination of her journey in the plotline, and an embarrassingly pointless epilogue involving the stars of Stree.

Among the film’s comedic elements Abhishek Banerjee reigns supreme. The actor makes his JD downright hilarious, carrying forward the brilliance he brought to his pivotal role in Stree. This is why it is particularly unfortunate that the slur mentioned above is assigned to him. While it is true that the remark is typical of JD, the film falters in its tone in this scene, walking a tricky balance that leaves it unclear what its own stance is on a word that is so widely used in the real world to insult individuals from the North East. The fuzziness in this moment stands out because of the clarity in other scenes in which JD is being racist. The monologue Jomin gets to deliver late in the film, decrying JD’s prejudice and the prejudice of mainland Indians in general, comes a bit too late after having exploited a slur to elicit laughs from viewers.

Varun Dhawan has a natural flair for comedy, and his Bhaski is often amusing too, but Bhediya’s best lines go to Abhishek who outshines everyone and everything else in this film. His comic timing is so impeccable that he even somehow manages to overshadow the juvenility of a scene that zooms in on faecal matter.

Paalin Kabaak who plays Jomin is sweet and has a likeable screen presence. Deepak Dobriyal is not given the space that an artiste of his immense skill merits, but is effective wherever he is present. Kriti Sanon hovers in the background through most of Bhediya. Although her Anika turns out to be crucial to the proceedings, the role does not give her enough meat to sink her teeth into and showcase herself.

The fact that Anika is the only identifiable woman in Bhediya is ironic considering that one of the characters says at an important juncture in the storyline that the female is the most powerful in every species. Powerful yet not worthy of substantial roles in human-made films, I guess.

Equally ironic and disappointing is the truth that Bhediya is not the first film in this world to sideline characters from social groups sidelined in the real world, even while purportedly being about those communities. Bhediya is set in Arunachal, but the only principal character from Arunachal, Jomin, is an ally of the marauding intruder who wishes to destroy the state’s natural wealth. He is lectured on loyalty to the land by Panda, a non-Arunachali who belongs to India’s most politically dominant region, the Hindi belt. The other characters from Arunachal are indistinguishable from each other, hanging around to manipulate or be manipulated or be a part of crowd shots, while centrality and agency rest throughout with Hindi bhaashis. The protector of this paradise is revealed to be a person who is definitely not from the North-East, and this person leaves Arunachal in the care of another who too is a Hindi bhaashi.

All the noble intentions in the world and even Abhishek Banerjee’s comedic genius cannot compensate for such mindlessness. Stree worked not only because of its sense of humour, but because it had a firm understanding of its own politics, a quality that Bhediya does not possess.

Rating: 2.5 (out of 5 stars) 

Bhediya is in theatres

Anna M.M. Vetticad is an award-winning journalist and author of The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic. She specialises in the intersection of cinema with feminist and other socio-political concerns. Twitter: @annavetticad, Instagram: @annammvetticad, Facebook: AnnaMMVetticadOfficial

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