Gandhari

A chirpy couple and their young daughter smile endlessly at each other while sitting in a train compartment, headed for a vacation. But this is a film by Devashish Makhija (Ajji, Bhonsle), so you know darkness and horror lurk around the corner. Right on cue, within minutes, the child is abducted from a platform. While chasing after her, her mother Bani (Taapsee Pannu) is severely injured and left unconscious. Forget mustering any sort of meaningful tension, felt emotion or rudimentary atmosphere, Gandhari struggles with the bare basics of storytelling: establishing and communicating who’s who, what’s what, what is happening, why it’s happening, how we got here, where we’re headed and how we get there.

Bani (Taapsee Pannu) and her husband Gokul (Ishwak Singh) are shell-shocked when their five-year-old daughter Mishty is abducted in broad daylight from Joypurra, a fictitious town in West Bengal. Consumed by guilt over her perceived negligence, Bani joins Gokul in a desperate search for their daughter, which eventually leads them to a child-trafficking racket. Things take a dramatic turn when Bani loses her eyesight. Can she still find her daughter and bring her back? With its Bengali backdrop, missing-person mystery, woman-on-a-mission narrative, revenge angle and vulnerable protagonist, Gandhari seems designed as a spiritual successor to Sujoy Ghosh’s terrific Kahaani (2012). But while Kahaani drew its power from atmosphere, restraint and a riveting central performance, Gandhari keeps reaching for bigger and louder moments without earning them. Vidya Balan’s performance in Kahaani immersed you in the world of an unsuspecting woman driven by fear, grief and determination. Taapsee Pannu, meanwhile, is pulled in too many directions here. The film turns her into a full-fledged theatrical action hero, complete with elaborate fight sequences, but in doing so, it loses sight of the actor and the emotional complexity she can bring to a character.