Chhorii Movie Review: Nushrratt Bharuccha Plays Peek-A-Boo With Horror And Takes You By Surprise

Story

When financial woes come knocking at Hemant (Saurabh Goyal) and his eight-months pregnant wife Sakshi (Nushrrat Bharrucha)'s door, the couple is forced to flee from the city for a few days. That's when their faithful driver Kajla (Rajesh Jias) comes to their rescue and offers to give them refuge at his house which is situated at the centre of an enormous sugarcane plantation faraway from the city. There, Kajla's wife Bhanno Devi (Mita Vashisht) agrees to take care of Sakshi.

However unknown to Sakshi and Hemant, there are some paranormal forces lurking around the house and the fields. Soon, Sakshi encounters three kids who are always running around the place with a woman clad in a red sari playing hide-and-seek with them. To add more to it, a mysterious radio with a lullaby playing on it appears and disappears frequently which causes Sakshi to think that there's more to the place than meets the eye.

Direction

Vishal Furia makes his directorial debut in Bollywood with Nushrratt Bharuccha's Chhorii. It turns out to be a safe bet for him as it's a faithful remake of his 2016 film Lapachhapi which starred Pooja Sawant as the main protagonist. While he shifts the landscape of his story from Maharashtra to Madhya Pradesh for a pan India appeal, the context of the story-telling remains the same. This works both for and against Furia.

Speaking about the positives, Furia has a tight grip over the subject and stays away from the typical horror clichés to invoke a sense of fear. He relies more on the atmospheric horror rather than jump scares which works in his favour. The filmmaker doesn't rely much on special effects and opts for a more fluid story-telling.

Now coming to the part where Chhorii breaks your heart a bit, Vishal prefers to take a safe route and hesitates to tweak the weaker portions of Lapachhapi in his Hindi version. Those who have watched the Pooja Sawant-starrer seldom get a moment where they are struck by surprise. While the original film had a runtime of around 1 hour and 53 minutes, Chhorii runs a little longer which is why some of the scenes appear repetitive.

Performances

In one of his interviews, Vishal had explained his reason behind casting Nushhratt and said that he wanted his protagonist to be a girl who could be intimidated in a certain way or get scared in certain scenarios. Well, Nushrratt ticks all his boxes. From playing an insecure girlfriend and a gold-digger in her previous flicks, the actress easily slips into the role of a to-be mother who finds herself pitted against the evil (both figuratively and metaphorically). The portions where her character transforms into her wary self has been well performed.

Mita Vashisht gives you the creeps as the peculiar Bhanno Devi whose actions don't match her words. On the flip side, her accent talk takes time to settle in. Saurabh Goyal and the rest of the cast perform as per what's written for them.

In a nutshell, Chhorii lies on the shoulders of the two chhoris of the film- Nushrratt Bharuccha and Mita Vashisht and they carry it quite well to the finishing line despite some bumps in their way.

Technical Aspects

Anshul Chobey does wonders with his camera and whips up some intriguing visuals with his technical finesse. Unnikrishnan Payoor Parameswaran's butterfingers at the editing table leaves you a tad dismayed.

Music

Vishal Furia steers clear of inserting unnecessary songs and instead lets the ominous background score by Ketan Sodha do all the talking.

Verdict

Nushrratt Bharuccha's Chhorii is like a maze where despite some dead ends, you still reach the destination with a strong social message.