Review of movie Shah Jahan Regency

×

Rating:3.5/5


The film doesn’t deviate much from Shankar’s seminal work, Chowringhee. Keeping almost all the initials and flavours intact, Sata Bose becomes Sameeran Bose, aka Sam (Abir Chatterjee), Marco Polo becomes Makararanda Pal (Anjan Dutt), Kaberi Basu becomes Kamalini (Swastika Mukherjee), Natahari becomes Nitya Banerjee (aka Nitty Gritty, Sujoy Prosad Chatterjee) and so on. We immerse into the madness of the iconic hotel through the wide-eyed-wonder of the new intern Rudra (Parambrata Chatterjee), a character based on Shankar of the original novel. 
With a slow start, the film suddenly gears up with the raging entry of Swastika — as an intellectual escort, Kamalini. It was followed by a series of snappy interactions between Kamalini and Dhananjay, aka Dheno, Chatterjee (Kanchan Mullick), Mrs Sarkar (Mamata Shankar) and her young toyboy, Nitty Gritty’s brief on homophobia and Makaranda’s wife’s manipulative plans to get a divorce and the film flares up. The torrid lovestory between Arnab Sarkar (Anirban Bhattacharya) and Kamalini too gets realistic with business deals and the toxic ancillary services added to it. 
It is the performance that primarily makes a film watchable and this is the one in which almost everyone is a showstopper in his or her own rights. Even the guest performers like Rituparna Sengupta (as Gayatri Chakraborty) and Babul Supriyo (Mr Aggarwal) present an outstanding job. From Parambrata’s journey from being a naive intern to an efficient manager to Mamata Shankar’s depiction of a lustful mistress and helpless mother to Anirban’s portrayal of the conflict between being a dreamer and a dutiful son — everyone puts forward a stellar performance. Despite donning a tacky wig, Anjan Dutt is perfect as a heartbroken old man. However, a bit elaboration in the script to show Makaranda’s fall from his pulpit could have justified the character a bit better. Kanchan looks perfect as slimy Dheno. It is perhaps because of the character, Sujoy Prosad looks very comfortable in his skin as he plays a snooty, gay housekeeper. However, Swastika as Kamalini is a real stunner. The character’s outstanding intelligence blends seamlessly with her pain and fear, and the actress gives her best to justify the complexities of Kamalini. With just the last ravaging five minutes, Abir literally compensates his initial flat tone as Sam. We don’t get to see Abir’s flare too often beyond his staple portrayal of Bengali detectives. The tail end of the film is the one to remember for Abir. Music is another forte of the film. Rajkumarir Gaan by Hoodkhola Kobitara (a set up by Prosen, Dipangshu, Ritam Sen) has so far been popular among a niche audience. It is laudable the way the film does justice to the song. Anirban’s rendition is really breathtaking.