Kareena's sombre performance lingered on long after I had left the theatre, notes Sukanya Verma.
Melancholy has a muse in Kareena Kapoor Khan.
Stripped off all her effervescence, one of the most vibrant forces of the silver screen transforms into a sublime portrait of sadness.
Dev, Omkara, Heroine, Talaash, Udta Punjab, Laal Singh Chaddha, Jaane Jaan... there are various glimpses of her inhabiting pain in its most pensive form.
It's time to add Hansal Mehta's The Buckingham Murders to that list, where the actress unlocks new levels of emotional maturity as a grieving mother.
When I watched the England-based police procedural as part of the Mumbai Film Festival's opening film last year, Kareena's sombre performance lingered on long after I had left the theatre. Her muted struggle as a woman haunted by the devastating loss of her young child and stoic leadership as a detective investigating the case of a missing kid reiterate her command of the art.
In The Buckingham Murders, where she's a co-producer, Kareena plays Jasmeet Bhamra, a British Indian cop voluntarily transferred to a sleepy looking Buckinghamshire town where her hopes of starting afresh contradicts her aversion to move on as she holds on to her deceased son's blood stained towel.
Jasmeet's suffering is apparent in little things and large.
Where an E pendant around her neck is a bleak reminder of the burden of 'outliving' one's child, the noise cancelling AirPods she has on at all times act appears to shield her from the sounds of normal life.
A storm resides within her and its rage is felt loud and clear when rubbed the wrong way or letting her guard slip in front of her composed father.
But there's also purpose, which gets her going when Mehta's temperate thriller takes off.
Still reeling from the aftermath of coronavirus and communal tension on the rise since 2022's Leicester unrest, a neighbourhood's undercurrents of friction are but one episode away from spiralling out of control, when a Muslim teenager is suspected to have a hand in the disappearance of a Sikh kid.
Its desi British mix of milieu and immigrant framework lends The Buckingham Murders a distinct texture against a largely Hindi-English interaction, free from the strains of forced accents. But that homegrown feel eludes it still.
There's plenty of gloom yet not enough intrigue in Mehta's subdued treatment of the mystery, which hunts for clues around the young victim's family and friends while noting the dynamics within Jasmeet's professional space.
Between folks harbouring demons of their own behind the garb of authority to sexual shame driving bright minds to commit dangerous deeds, The Buckingham Murders delves and digresses in snatches but finds its deception across secrets, retribution and sinister conspiracies.
Except the buildup never feels quite like one and the upshot is a series of contrivances leaving lowkey Kareena at the forefront of all starkness.
Of the rest of the cast, Prabhleen Sandhu merits some appreciation in a staggeringly underwritten role but Ash Tandon's stiff and sexist investigating officer, chef Ranveer Brar's embarrassingly bad turn as the bereaved father and Sarah-Jane Dias in a flimsy cameo does them no favours.
Morality is the core of Mehta's cinematic fibre and the social issues it spawns.
Both its mystery and mediation of grief are mindful of his sensibilities in Jasmeet's poignant release.
There is enormous evil in the world perpetuated by the very society that becomes its first victim.
Having felt its damaging consequences first hand, Jasmeet is determined to stop it from causing further destruction. It's evident in her resolve to save an accused whose guilt she is unconvinced about.
Distressed cops finding closure to their personal trauma over the course of resolving a murky murder mystery has produced mesmerising character studies in Kate Winslet's Mare of Easttown to Surinder Vicky in Kohraa.
While The Buckingham Murders has neither complexity, its straightforward set-up finds its heft in Jasmeet's grit to set things right.
Alas, weakly justified false alarms, hastily implemented turnarounds and sloppily indicted wrongdoers bring down the momentum of what could be a tauter, tenser drama.
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