Hemlock Society - The Review

HEM’LOVE’ SOCIETY
The inevitable stumbling block that Sreejit Mukherjee encounters, every time his movie hits the screen, is an overwhelming baggage of expectations. It all started with Autograph, which changed the way the intellectual Bengali mass expected Bengali commercial movies to be. Of course, I use the word commercial when it comes to Sreejit’s movies. They are nowhere to be confused with art house movies, nor can they be termed as parallel movies. They have the routine song sequence, the big production house backing, the overtly done promotion, the presence of the biggest superstars of the industry.
So, what makes Sreejit’s movies still fall into a genre different from the regular ‘Paglu’ and ‘Khokababu’ movies? It’s his treatment which makes him stand apart from the regular league of commercial masala Bengali movies. He uses a similar starcast which the masala movies use, but he manages to churn out a different product altogether. He never tries to overdo the things, strikes a vivid balance between intellectualism and commercialism and scores big brownie points doing so.
Coming back to his latest release ‘Hemlock Society’, Sreejit had to break some rules and conventions. He was under the pressure of delivering a hattrick of hits, and to prove a thing or two to his critics as well. Given the fact this was not a Pujo release, unlike Autograph and 22she Shrabon, which kind of would have cemented a Hit Tag even before the movie releases. Moreover, there ain’t no Bumba da this time, who has the uncanny reputation of pulling out a movie single handedly, and steal the limelight. Sreejit casted Koel, an out and out masala movie heroine who has so far done nothing than singing and dancing in exotic foreign locales, as the female lead. He also casted Parambrata as the male lead, who so far has been excellent in cameos but he hardly is a lead material.  So, rules were broken, conventions were shattered, and few myths were to be proved wrong.
The Movie opens with the break-up of Meghna’s (Koel) 14 year long relationship, as she sees her boyfriend in the act with another woman. She has a troubled family life too, with her father Chitto (played by Dipankar to perfection) marrying Niharika (Rupa Ganguly, looks lovely as ever) who is the tragic bitch stepmom, with whom she does not gel at all. Adding to it, is her workplace problems, from where she is gonna be fired soon, because of her devil-may-care attitude and torn jeans.
Reason enough for attempting suicide? She thinks so, and she ventures out in the dead of the night  for a cliché-style suicide mission by buying a bottle of sleeping pills. As chance had it, the male protagonist Anondo Kar (played by Parambrata  – the character name part symbolic, part oxymoronic ) bumps into her at the med store, very bollywoodishly and decides to help her out – No, not by convincing her to dump her suicide attempt, but by assisting her to take the bold step, without making a mess out of it –  summarizing the motto of his establishment – Hemlock Society – Morle Moro, Chhoriyo naa..
Parambrata comes out as an ensemble of Bollywood romantic heroes – a mix of yesterday’s Rajesh Khanna of Anand, with an overdose of Babumoshai  meets today’s Shahrukh Khan of Kal Ho naa Ho, effortlessly flirting with Koel, in the same time, helps her to complete her suicide mission by enrolling her into Hemlock Society. An inherited rich guy, who drives a BMW convertible, and runs a Suicide Workshop in the guise of a Film city in the suburbs, Parambrata does a great job in bringing out the multiple shades of his character. His dialogues are coated with wit as he says he is looking for a woman je ‘Feluda jaane, Neruda jaane, aabaar Derridao jaane’
The 2nd half of the film revolves around many cameos, who all are the lecturers and students of the different  courses the society offers specializing in various methodologies of suicides. The naming of the characters is very neatly done, with names like ‘Dhamani’ as the one who specializes in splitting wrists, ‘Setu’ as the one who specializes in jumping of a bridge and so on. Sreejit manages to gather a bunch of very talented veterans like Soumitro, Sabitri and Sabyasachi as well as people from theatre and all possible other fields like Bratya Basu, Shilajeet, Raj Chakraborti, Priyanka etc  to do these short 5 mins cameos, and boy, did they do justice to their small roles. Worth mentioning is Bratya Basu’s role as Raktim Ganguly who specializes in shooting oneself. Shilajeet does a great job with his bringing up of an artist’s dilemma when his best days are over, ala Cobain style – “It’s better to burn than to fade away”. Priyanka shines as ‘Hiya’ - a teenage girl forced to prostitution. In the midst of all these happening, Koel founds herself fallen for Parambrata, and realizes that she no longer wants to die, but with her new found love, she wants to live again for the worldly things like Phuchka khawa, ghurte jawa, Sachin’s batting etc. Out comes the ‘typical Sreejit twist’ when she discloses this to Parambrata . What follows is a sea of emotion between the 2 leads and a very nicely done ending.
The music of this movie is quite good, if not as good as Autograph and 22she Shrabon, but definitely hummable. Shilajeet’s jazz and blue ‘Jawl Phoring’ and Rupam’s signature style ‘Phiriye dewaar gaan’ are the pick of the pack.  But, somehow I felt, the songs did not fit as good as it should have been in the moments.  The surprise package of this movie is obviously Koel, who did a great job as the geeky introvert intellectual girl, a remarkably different kind of role she has done so far. This could well become a turning point in her career if she wishes to continue with meaningful cinemas. Parambrata is excellent, and his dialogues and punchlines, sudden one liners and intelligent/intellectual talks keeps viewers engrossed. Overall, you may like this movie or not, but you would appreciate the treatment - The honesty coupled with intellectualism put into correct doses in this movie, making it so easy to watch, though it deals with such a dark and morbid subject – Suicide.
For me, it rocked, and I was not so sure, when I left the theatre, whether I liked it or not, but as 24 hrs pass, I realize that I really loved the movie. Congrats Team Sreejit, you have done it again. A Hattrick of hits for sure.