STORY
Afwaah is a mystery thriller centralized on two characters, Rahab and Nivi played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Bhumi Pednekar. Rahab is a CEO of a telecom company and Nivi is fiancée of a local politician Vicky. One night, Nivi runs away from Vicky and accidentally crosses path with Rahab when the latter saves her from Vicky’s goons. And then the chase begins.
REVIEW
Veteran filmmaker Sudhir Mishra brings another interesting plot about one horrible night like he made “Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin“. What ‘Afwaah’ gives us in its two-hour presentation is the series of unfortunate incidents that leads us to ridiculous as well as thought-provoking consequences. The core of the purpose was to show the audience how the netizens are manipulated and brainwashed by a lie that ignites with emphasizing on the Islamophobic content of “Love Jihad“.
When Vicky understands that Nivi is running away with a guy named Rahab assumingly a Muslim, Vicky plays a dirty game and allows his social media team to viral their running video and fit the angle of love jihad so that people lose their mind and help him bring Nivi back.
Afwaah’s story and the screenplay started and developed well with all major characters of the plot getting decent minutes and settled the viewers to the focal point. The film gets slow where the character has to grow and picks up the pace when the thrill is required. I think the screen time of 120 minutes was accurate due to important subplots of Vicky’s goon Chandan and police officers Tomar and Riya.
I don’t understand why Tomar didn’t kill Chandan when he saw him in the truck. Why did he scan the truck and interrogated the driver instead of easily catching Chandan who was sleeping?
Are Tata Motors one of the producers of the film? I ask because their car Range Rover driven by Rahab falls in the ditch and later one of the goons speaks highly about the car, reckons the price and even talks about selling it for a higher price. That was an unnecessary scene too.
KEEPING RAHAB ALIVE WAS WRONG
The film gave Nivi a deserving conclusion. But I am absolutely not convinced with keeping Rahab alive somehow. The gate of the festival was closed after his viral video with Nivi and Rahab’s wife kept protesting over the decision that fall on deaf ears. Rahab desperately kept hitting the gate to get in but the media brainwashing won over him. After Chandan stabbed Rahab, he must have died with injustice. The dialogue that he uttered to his wife that his death will be a total waste if he died were fittingly the character’s final words and must have cried these words when he was stabbed. Had he died, the purpose of the film would have been served, the word ‘Afwaah’ would have won, the lie would have defeated the truth. Sadly, Bollywood maintained keeping the hero of the film alive.
CLOSING REMARKS
I want to thank Sudhir ji for not making Rahab and Nivi fall in love with each other. Afwaah, without a doubt, deserves the praise for a thought provoking story followed by an impressive screenplay. Nawaz was superb as usual but the real winner was Bhumi. Watch her argument with Vicky, escaping from goons, when she humiliates the boy, and her scenes outside the gate. She was fabulous. Afwaah successfully shows the viewers how a political denunciation brings hatred and divides the communities through media manipulation.
When I finished watching Afwaah, I remembered that Rahab lectured to the audience about why he came back from the US. Because he wanted to contribute to his country. And see what happened. Where this passion led to? A viral video almost killed him because his name was Rahab. Because he was assumed that he is one of those Muslims who would take a Hindu girl, convert her religion or marry her to produce Muslim children, and pace down the Hindu population and accelerate and do favor to the fastest growing religion in the world. All this was poisoned to all the netizens through a viral video.
RATING 8/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 