Director Jayprad Desai’s Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba begins like a pulpy, C-grade Hindi novel: with high drama. On a dark, rainy night in Agra, a woman is running for her life on a deserted road. Her wispy-thin saree sticking to her like clingfilm, she dashes into a police station, screaming. Her husband, she says, is going to kill her.
She is Rani (Taapsee Pannu), currently married to Abhimanyu (Sunny Kaushal), a compounder. But at the police station, Rani encounters questions about her bloody past.
Three years ago, in the 2021 film, Hasseen Dillruba, Rani was married to Rishu (Vikrant Massey) but had taken a lover, Neel. Things didn't go as planned and she had struck Neel dead. And then she had helped cover up the murder with her husband’s severed arm.
As Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba goes into flashback—not to the 2021 film, but to a few weeks leading up to Rani's screaming entry into the police station—the plot thickens.
Rani and Rishu have been living in Agra, incognito and separately. She worked at a beauty parlour and he took coaching classes. Hiding from the police and careful never to be seen together, they had found innovative ways to talk to each other and plot their escape from India.
Often they would use quotes from the novels of Rani’s favourite author Dinesh Pandit to communicate and pool their money for a one-way ticket to Thailand.
After all, it was one of Panditji’s novels that inspired their escape after Rani had bludgeoned Neel to death. But before their travel agent could finalise their ticket and visa, Mrityunjay Paswan, aka Montu Chacha (Jimmy Shergill), a particularly cussed cop, determined to nab the murderer of Neel, arrived in Agra and messed up their plan.
So Rani was now married to Abhimanyu, a small-town man with a small desire — he wants his wife to fall in love with him and is a fan of Dinesh Pandit.
The 2021 film, ‘Hasseen Dillruba’, directed by Vinil Mathew, was exciting because it felt as if one of those risqué railway platform novels had come alive on the big screen. The sequel is no different. Both the films have been written by Kanika Dhillon, and are like a cross between a Mills & Boons and a Sidney Sheldon revenge thriller. Both have a seedy, complicated situation, men and women with flexible morals, desire, lust, schemes, deceit, and murder.
But in many ways, the sequel is better than the original. While the 2021 film centred around a young couple in a loveless arranged marriage, followed by an affair and murder, the sequel is about Rani and Rishu pining for each other and trying to be together.
But with Montu Chacha stalking them, and Abhimanyu desperate to hold on to Rani, the midnight dash to the police station seemed like the only solution, even if it meant an end to their escape plan.
But ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’ is plotted like a game of snakes and ladders with twists and deadly bites, downward slides, and sudden triumphs. Though many of these twists are predictable and we are one step ahead of the film, director Jayprad Desai, who had made the fabulous cricket film, ‘Kaun Pravin Tambe?’, does his best to hide the film's flaws, and focuses on its strengths.
Compared to the original, Taapsee Pannu’s acting has improved much in the sequel and she looks sexy as hell. Her blouses are meagre, and her saree pallu, flimsy and whimsical, is always eager to fall off.
The love triangle is made eerie by Sunny Kaushal's Abhimanyu. He carries a scary backstory with a creepy, inscrutable smile and whistles at the wrong time.
What's missing though is Vikrant Massey's excellent performance that had held together the original. He is good here, but has very few scenes. Jimmy Shergill tries to add some glamour and spark, but he too has very little to do.
The other problem with this film is that it leaves a few strands dangling in the end. The one involving two burnt bodies, which is a major plot point, is especially jarring. The film vaguely explains who and why, but skips how, probably because it didn't want to sully the lovers, treating them more as escape artists rather than as murderers. Whatever may have been the reason, it’s an inexcusable writing faux pas, especially in a thriller.
Despite that ‘Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba’ works because it is directed very well and is pacy, juicy, wicked, and fun.
It cleverly uses the Laxmikant-Pyarelal song, ‘Ek Hasina Thi’, from the 1980 Subhash Ghai film ‘Karz’, to add some exciting deviant energy and in the end delivers the satisfaction that trashy novels promise.
Film: Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba
Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, Sunny Kaushal, Jimmy Shergill, Aditya Srivastava
Directed by: Jayprad Desai
Rating: 3/5
Streaming on Netflix
