Kriti Tulsiani

At a time when social media is flooded with information on varying topics, digital distractions compete with everyday tasks for attention, and plans are only in the making, John Kelly’s film Retirement Plan is the perfect antidote to jolt you out of that constant feeling of overwhelm and return to what is - the present. The animation by Marah Curran and Eamonn O’Neill is just as simplistic yet moving as the premise - a man leaving some basic and some extravagant plans for a future he is certain he will have. But life, unlike fiction, rarely follows a coherent plot. What is particularly moving is that in under seven minutes, we get to be with a man whose journey from the present day to the afterlife has countless relatable moments. And even though Ray is in his retirement, the appeal of the story certainly goes beyond age.

At the heart of Criminal Justice Season 4: A Family Matter is indeed a family matter, and that of the affluent Nagpal family. Raj Nagpal (Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub) and his estranged wife Anju Nagpal (Surveen Chawla) live in the same building, but in different apartments. They share a teenage daughter, Ira, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. Then there’s Raj’s mother, Gurmeet, and his girlfriend Roshni Saluja (Asha Negi), who is also Ira’s nurse. It’s a modern family, and everyone seems to have come to terms with the arrangement. All seems well until one day, their shared househelp Kamala walks in to see a dead Roshni lying in a pool of blood in Raj’s arms. Her cry for help reaches Anju, who rushes from next door, and immediately calls up the police. Raj is now the prime suspect in the police investigation and Anju reaches out to lawyer Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi) for help. What follows is a taut murder investigation - with the angles of police interrogation, courtroom drama and a parallel media trial.

Seven years after the events of Chhorii, Sakshi (Nushrratt Bharrucha) is happily staying with her daughter Ishani (Hardika Das). The 7-year-old girl suffers from a rare condition where she gets instantly burnt in the sun and so, darkness is her ally. She’s either at home or covered top to bottom when stepping out. But one fateful night, revenge and vengeance claw their way into their happy little world. The mother-daughter duo is now back in the same cursed village and sugarcane fields they once fled. They are trapped in a cave where there’s an Adimanav, who feeds on ‘seva’ and ‘samarpan’ from young girls, a Daasi maa (Soha Ali Khan) who aides the caveman in his ‘healing’ quest, young and old torchbearers of toxic misogyny, and corpses gunning for revenge, among other elements. What primarily worked for Chhorii when it released in 2021 was that it balanced the chills and thrills with its messaging about female infanticide. But the sequel fails to do just that. The weight of its social commentary is unfortunately borne by its thrills - that rarely get you to the edge of your seat. The supernatural characters, too, fail to evoke any horrors.

In Bella Chowdhary’s world, there’s no such thing as too many bags and in a world of fakes, she is on a path to become a Birkin. But it’s a path that she hasn’t chosen for herself, rather, a tragedy has led her there.

In Taaza Khabar Season 2, there’s little that’s taaza (fresh). There’s ambition, but not enough drive. There are those next big things, but not the smoothest ways forward. A show, often oscillating between past, present and future, lacks the ‘vardaan’ (blessing) of staying afloat - something that, both the series and Bhuvan Bam’s character Vasant Gawde desperately need.

Will the real ‘Jigra’ please stand up? In Vasant Bala’s film, Vedang Raina might be portraying the titular character, but it’s Alia Bhatt, who is the heart and soul of the film. Turns out she is a shield not just for her brother, but also for the movie, even as the revenge thriller rests too heavily on Bhatt.