'TITLI' reviews

Page

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

Can't choose your family!

Titli

Rating:

October 30, 2015

Cast: Shashank Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Lalit Behl, Prashant Singh

Director: Kanu Behl

Titli, co-written and directed by Kanu Behl, is a hard film to shake off. I've watched it thrice now since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year, and it still manages to get under my skin. It's not just the brutality that always and inevitably affects me, but also the haunting performances of its cast, and the fascinating portrait of a family raised amidst a tradition of violence and female subjugation.

Shashank Arora is Titli, the youngest of three brothers, living together with their father in a small, cramped home near a sewer in one of East Delhi's squalid neighborhoods. Titli has been plotting to break away from the family and ditch the life of crime and violence they're so deeply entrenched in. Oldest brother Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) is hotheaded and prone to cruel outbursts. Middle brother Bawla (Amit Sial) has a kinder manner, but is fiercely loyal to Vikram. Armed with a hammer, and little by way of conscience or pity, the two brothers routinely hijack cars on the highway, and often recruit the youngest to assist them in their job'.

When they learn of Titli's plan to flee the nest, the brothers get him married, hopeful that a wife will ground him, and optimistic that she could be a worthy accomplice in their work. But Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi) has an agenda of her own, and Titli makes a deal with her that could help them both get what they want.

Behl and co-writer Sharat Katariya's sharply observed screenplay shines a light on an endemically cynical world. Everyone here is corrupt or lying, and hope is in short supply. The beauty of the script is that none of this feels manufactured or fake; you can smell the rank desperation in the air.

It's also a meticulously detailed film, and Bahl urges viewers to look and listen for themselves, and not merely wait to be spoon-fed. From Bawla's sexual orientation to their father's own violent past, Behl asks you to read between the lines, never overstressing or simplifying the facts.

Titli unravels briskly, and it's riveting from start to finish. Much credit for that must go to a fine ensemble of actors who really sink their teeth into these parts. Ranvir Shorey leads the way with a terrifying, terrific performance that doesn't miss a beat. His Vikram is the kind of guy you'll hope you never have to encounter.

Watching the film earlier this week, a whole year after I'd last watched it, the violence still felt stomach churning, and I still came away impressed by the unexpected moments of humor that Behl had managed to sneak into this intense drama. Titli is relentlessly grim and yet unmistakably powerful and moving. It may not be everyone's cup of tea - it's especially not for the squeamish - but it's an unflinching study of family in the way that the movies rarely provide.

I'm going with four out of five for Titli. Brace yourself, you will be rewarded.

Edited by touch_of_pink - 9 years ago

Quote

Frequent Posters

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

Titli review: This is the best Hindi film of the year so far

Rohit Vats, Hindustan Times, New Delhi|
Updated: Oct 30, 2015 14:33 IST

Shashank Arora plays the role of Titli in the film.(YOUTUBE GRAB)

6018

Titli
Cast: Shashank Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial, Lalit Behl, Prashant Singh, Shivani Raghuvanshi
Director: Kanu Behl
Rating: 5/5

If you are familiar with the noxious, dark underbelly of Delhi, director Kanu Behl's Titli hits you in the guts right from the first frame. Because it is about a world that co-exists right in our midst, a world so lowly that we ignore but never forget while driving back home in the still of the night. Even if you haven't been to any such place in the capital, or encountered the people who inhabit these crowded bylanes, the fact is that Titli could be about any city, and its people. All you need to do is change the actors as per your ethnic and regional requirements for this tailor-made story of stark class difference in urban districts.

Titli (Shashank Arora) is the youngest in a family of poor car-jackers who live in the outskirts of Delhi. These bylanes are occupied by people who're oscillating between the idea of a better life and their ruined present. Titli's elder brothers, Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) and Bawla (Amit Sial) are emotionally traumatised, drifting from one day to the other, without any concrete plan for their future. It's this oppressed section of the society which is untouchable for the growing corporate' India. The brothers, and their father (Lalit Behl), make ends meet with whatever they earn from petty road robberies (they call it gasht').

Ranvir Shorey, Shashank Arora and Amit Sial in a still from Titli. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

One day, the brothers decide to marry off Titli just so that they have a female member in their gang who could help them trap their victims more easily. The bride, Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), refuses to be a part of any crime. Instead, she has her own dreams, and expects Titli to help her fulfil them. But, will this be possible in a densely populated street whose sunlight has been blocked by nearby skyscrapers?

Ranvir Shorey in a still from Titli. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

Titli grips you in a weird way. You recognise these characters: They could have studied with you in college, sold you second-hand motorcycle parts... even threatened you with a baseball bat when you bumped into their scooter at a traffic signal. The close ups of this dysfunctional family disturb as these give you an insight into a world far from shining showrooms and international food joints. The magical effect of Super 16 film format introduces you to the inner world of these otherwise lonely, hopeless, misguided and tyrant men. Siddharth Diwan's photography brings to the fore the backward velocity of the people living under the false pretension of a metropolitan life.

Writers Sharat Katariya and Kanu Behl don't keep you at an objective distance. They challenge you to stop ignoring the so-called social blots, and once you're sucked in, they make you believe that the injustice behind the rough exterior is systematic. It could be anything from the patriarchal mindset to the hurried urbanisation, or maybe it's a mixture of both and many more twisted theories. The language, lifestyle and aspirations of these people living beside a gutter prompt a lot of Dilliwaallaahs to deny their existence despite knowing that it's actually the civilised' world which is contributing to pushing them over the edge.

Titli simply dreams of getting out of mess that his surroundings offer. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

One scene from Titli will haunt you for long: Bawla staring at women employees inside a parlour attending to their male customers. The scene is striking because this man could be anyone around us -- from the migrant to the garage worker -- who feels stifled in a big city, seething with anger at the injustice life's meted out to him. It could be a snake-pit, or a volcano on the verge of eruption. The truth is that none of these people on the margins of life are dreaming of owning a palace ever. All that they want is some respite from being tossed around by the world around them. Guess what does Titli dream of? He wants to own a car parking business!

A world beyond right and wrong, it's a quest for a dignified life. Vikram keeps eating even if his father coughs his lungs out. Bawla cries while Titli listens to it with indifferent expressions. Vikram's estranged wife threatens him with a lawsuit and he silently sobs. In absence of any form of solitude, they have learnt to deal with their individual pains by inflicting the same on others, sometimes through words, and mostly through slaps.

If Neelu is a victim, so are the others. Their tenderness turns into a mindless tough exterior in no time. However, you get engulfed with so much melancholy just five scenes into the film, you want some hope to seep in, and it only gets even more realistic. Titli's screenplay is so amazingly crafted that it grips you by the collar, and makes you live all that is happening on the screen.

Shashank Arora as Titli is every bit the wretched youngster whose dreams are crushed under a pile of violent developments in Titli. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

No, Titli doesn't frighten you. It doesn't make you privy to some private conversations either. Instead, it pushes you out of slumber and makes you see the after-effects of a waywardly classic liberal economy.

Ranvir Shorey as Vikram has given the best performance of his life, but the real show-stealer is Shashank Arora as the glum, disinterested Titli. His morose face is the entry point of depression. He is every bit a wretched youngster whose dreams are crushed under a pile of violent developments. Amit Sial is perfect for a character that is as miserable as a butterfly circling a lamp. Shivani Raghuvanshi has an ideal face for Neelu's character, and she has done justice to it.

Kanu Behl's Titli is the most impressive film of this year so far. Its tryst with reality will keep you hooked till the end, to say the least. Titli is the latest gem from evolving Indian cinema. Don't even think of missing it.

Quote

Looks like you are new here. Register for free, learn and contribute.

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

Titli review: Violent, shocking but impressive debut by Kanu Behl

by Gayatri Gauri Oct 30, 2015 16:10 IST

345 48 0

Titli is not an easy film to watch. It hits you in the guts and spills out blood.

First it sucks you in. Into the narrow bylanes of Delhi's underbelly; into the tiny and crowded, claustrophobic houses and into the lives of three brothers, whose address includes a gutter. They lead a life that may make hell look like a bearable hole, if not heaven. It repels you and compels you. You flinch. You wince. You even want to shut your eyes. Because you are actually made to relentlessly feel the pain the characters feel.

Strangely, it's the sort of pain that is used to numb things out. The way in which a newly wed wife, Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi, who is magnificently real) allows her husband, Titli (Shashank Arora) to inject her with local anesthesia so that she loses any physical sensation of what will happen next is a primary example of that.

It's the most horrifying depiction of both cruelty and tolerance. The contradiction doesn't lie in the husband's act alone. But also in the wife's reaction, when he tests her numbness by slapping her wrist again and again. "Thoda wait kar lo na," she protests mildly, in a typicalDilli wali tone, as if waiting for a cup of tea.

After all, she is actually waiting for better things in life, like her married lover with the cruelly apt and ironical name, Prince (Prashant Singh). You can't really blame her. Even Titli wants to fly out of his cage. He wants to run away from his family of two brothers and a father who make a living out of smashing cars, dragging people out and banging their heads with hammers.

Titli has a dream of his own. He wants to buy a garage space in an upcoming mall. This will cost him a sum of Rs. 3 lakhs. It's an amount that his family cannot afford to give him. But they can marry him off, instead. To a girl who will help them sell combs and hair oil from their loss making, small shop.

Little does Titli know that there is no bed of roses at the night with his bride. Instead, there is a quiet wrestling match, where bangles clang in furious protest instead of lusty moans. This is a remarkably well-written scene without dialogues. The intense performances by Raghuvanshi and Arora capture the disturbing under- the-sheet violence which probably mirrors many a marriage. The single bedroom's cramped interior with a small, steel cupboard, is designed and used brilliantly to showcase stifled emotions.

Strangely, the sympathies don't just lie with Titli and Neelu but also his two conniving and brutal brothers. This is where Behl and Sharat Katariya's writing shines. The short tempered, abusive Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) can blow fists, shed tears at the drop of a hat and also see through a divorce deed thrust at his face by his beaten up wife.

The other brother, Baawla (Amit Sial) is the quiet mediator. If Shorey packs a powerful punch with his gritty act, Sial is the show stealer in his unobtrusive reactions, friendly presence and gay leanings. The two brothers are a sight to watch, in their bad-blood soaked checked shirts.

Then there is the father (Lalit Behl, also the director's dad) who quietly dunks his biscuit in his chai in the midst of a family fight. He is simply happy to throw in wicked ideas and later dance at his son's wedding. There is a gem of a moment in the way he is seen briefly, moving to the baraat tunes, in the slowest, wearisome and habituated step seen at a wedding.

It's not the violence that shocks in the car-jacking scenes, as much as the way Titli reacts. At one point, he gets into the driving seat of a robbed car with a missing windshield. "Raat hai...haath saaf kar leta hoon," he says casually, referring to his driving learning skills.

That's how debutant director, Kanu Behl's Titli plays out. The moments constantly switch from the pleasant to the unpleasant, the shocking to the more shocking, the intense to the light; all within one sequence. Gruesome action is punctuated by tension filled, long silences which keep your eyes glued to the screen with bated breath. Long shots in natural light, with a hand held camera that moves with a character, bring out the details of the glum milieu.

Sometimes, the sounds are overdone, like the brushing of teeth and clearing of the throat and lungs. There is so much focus on trying to keep the world so real that you are subjected to watching Titli puke or Vikram spit while brushing.

Behl, who makes an impressive directorial debut with Titli, has earlier shown the same unique sparks in Dibakar Banerjee's Love Sex Aur Dhoka, as co-writer and assistant director. With Banerjee and Yashraj Films backing the film as co-producers, Titli premiered at Un certain Regard section of Cannes Film Festival, 2014.

Whether Titli, the reluctant brother, transforms into a butterfly and flies away or not, there is certainly no escaping from Behl's non-apologetic, brutal and bloody tale.

Quote

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

Titli review: Ranvir Shorey movie is hard to watch, impossible to forget

Titli movie review: You end up feeling for Titli. You want him to break free, and fly away. He shines, and despite its darkness, so does the film. It is harrowing but imperative viewing.

Written by Shubhra Gupta | New Delhi |Updated: October 30, 2015 7:15 pm

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on google_plusone_share

Comments (0)

titli review, titli movie review, review titli, movie review titli, titli film review, film review titli, titli movie, titli, titli film, titli film story, titli movie story, new released movie

Titli movie review: You end up feeling for Titli. You want him to break free, and fly away. He shines, and despite its darkness, so does the film. It is harrowing but imperative viewing.

A family is not always a haven. It does not always cherish and nourish. It can suck out your soul, and whistle as it spits your husk out. That's what the father and brothers of Titli, the young protagonist in the film that bears his name, are to him: elders but not betters, people who lead by example, but into the abyss.

Kanu Behl's debut feature is about one such family, which you haven't seen in Bollywood before. It's the polar opposite of the happy, shiny creatures served up by the Barjatya-Johar brand of cinema: it is a family which does eat together, and then they go out together. For a kill. Once you are done with it, you find the film is not done with you. It burrows deep, its hard edges looking for your soft spots. Titli' is brutal, its violence visceral: hard to watch, impossible to forget.

Titli (Shashank Arora) is the youngest of three brothers who live with their father in a lifeless hovel on the outskirts of the capital. Vikram (Ranvir Shorey), Pradeep aka Bawla (Amit Sial) and their father (Lalit Behl, the director's own father) are nowhere people going rapidly nowhere, sinking lower and lower till they are stripped of their humanity.

Violence and crime are natural companions. What else can they do to hack a life unless they threaten another life? Carjacking and turning over the vehicles for ready cash is what they come to: a deadend profession' sending them spiralling towards more bloodshed, a deeply corrupt, defunct system, and individuals grifting along, to get somewhere.

Titli's alliance with Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), a girl acting under her own compulsions, is not forged because the family feels that he needs a bride, but because a female is a good front to ensnare innocents: who will suspect a con when a fresh-faced girl is around?

Still of Titli.

You may have seen all kinds of Delhis and Dilliwalas and walis' in the movies, but Behl's city and its inhabitants are in a class by themselves in the way they inhabit their rabbit holes, and fill them with their rage and helplessness. They are not monsters- and this is where Behl's insider track knowledge of the place and the people comes in- who bludgeon and curse and shout and bully to keep on top. These are characters who do what they do because they see no other way to act, even if the relentlessness and dispiritedness becomes a bit too much to take at times.

The performances are excellent: from Raghuvanshi who channels hurt and bewilderment and stoicism in the face of an overwhelming situation, to Lalit Behl, who bids fair to be the creepiest, most parasitic Hindi cinema father, to the middle brother Sial who tries to keep the peace. Newcomer Shashank Arora lives and breathes Titli, the young fellow looking desperately for a way out. And Ranvir Shorey, as the oldest sibling whose violence is the most corrosive, yet the most heart-breaking, is outstanding.

You watch, with mounting horror, your heart in your mouth. You watch, because you cannot look away. You end up feeling for Titli. You want him to break free, and fly away. He shines, and despite its darkness, so does the film. It is harrowing but imperative viewing.

Star cast of Titli: Ranvir Shorey,Shashank Arora, Amit Sial, Lalit Behl, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Prashant Singh
Director: Kanu Behl

Three and a half stars.

Edited by touch_of_pink - 9 years ago

Quote

pallavi25

@pallavi25

Inactive

+ 5

Posted: 9 years ago

TFS!

The trailer was so brutal and horrifying, I dont know how people can tolerate watching such gory violence on the big screen, however great the movie is!

Quote

Rekha_ji

@Rekha_ji

Rocker

+ 2

Posted: 9 years ago

The trailer was amazing. Seems like the movie has lived up to the hype. Probably won't get to see it as it's unlikely to be playing in the UK.

Quote

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

'Titli' review: It's all about choosing between a known devil and an unknown devil

Friday, 30 October 2015 - 8:54pm IST | Agency: dna

Bryan Durham

Not an easy film to watch, Titli sheds light on a microcosm within a microcosm, where frustration and sheer helplessness dictate actions and reactions.

Film: Titli

Director: Kanu Behl

Cast: Ranvir Shorey, Shashank Arora, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Amit Sial

Rating: ***1/2 (Three and half stars)

What's it about:
The first thing that strikes you about this family of four -- father and three brothers -- is an unspoken resignation to their lot. Things are always going to be this way, it seems to suggest. The two older brothers are violent carjackers, picking out and attacking their victims with impunity. The youngest, Titli, often used as bait, is ill at ease with his situation. He's got his eye on this 'parking' at an under-construction mall, which a 'friend' offers to help strike a deal for. Oldest brother Vikram only needs an excuse to lose his temper. An early example comes in the way he brutally assaults a deliveryman. Bawla (Sial) seems to be the voice of reason, often coming between volatile Vikram and the naive Titli's arguments. The father, an otherwise silent observer (played by veteran actor Lalit Behl), is more effective than an acid-tongued saas.
Into the mix, comes Neelu (Raghuvanshi), Bawla's idea of keeping Titli from flying the coop and getting more effective bait for their carjacking. Only, if Neelu were that pliant. She actually has a mind of her own, something that becomes apparent as soon as they brutally hammer a car salesman's head in during a 'test drive'.
She's got a married lover on the side, who belongs to an influential builder's family, Titli wants to be free of his family and the newlyweds come up with a mutually beneficial arrangement. Do the duo get their independence?

What's hot:
Strong, yet restrained performances mark Kanu Behl's debut. One look at Ranvir (even before the violence comes to light) and you know there's a feral beast waiting to be set loose. The complexly written Bawla, played by Sial, leaves much to the viewer's imagination. He remains a mystery throughout. Titli and Neelu are the kind of couple urban India might not want to believe exists. One that is selfish enough to have motives, honest enough to make you, the viewer, uneasy about their circumstance.
In recent times, nobody has been able to capture small-town India as effectively as Sharat Katariya (who shares co-writing credits with helmer Kanu Behl) and that translates well on screen. Human emotions become as much a character as flesh-and-blood ones. Blinded by their own singular pursuits, Titli and Neelu find themselves constantly the victims of deals gone wrong. It says something when the one person you ought to revile the most (Vikram) is the one you feel sorry for.

What's not:
It's not easy to sympathise with the title character. Anybody that naive in the face of pretty blatant corruption and stupid enough to carry lakhs of rupees in one's knapsack is asking for trouble. More so, in the second half, when Titli actually gets on a journey of self-discovery. The cinematography is aptly claustrophobic, even in outdoor scenes. But it is the uneven editing in places that kind-of takes away from the experience.

What to do:
Not an easy film to watch, Titli sheds light on a microcosm within a microcosm, where frustration and sheer helplessness dictate actions and reactions. In the end, it all comes down to choosing between a known devil and an unknown devil.

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/review-titli-review-it-s-all-about-choosing-between-a-known-devil-and-an-unknown-devil-2140415

Quote

Nikki

@touch_of_pink

Sparkler

+ 8

Posted: 9 years ago

FILM REVIEW: TITLI

By Kunal Guha, Mumbai Mirror | Oct 30, 2015, 12.00 AM IST

Critic's Rating: 3/5

Avg Readers' Rating: 3/5

CAST:Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial, Shashank Arora, Lalit Behl, Shivani Raghuvanshi

DIRECTION:Kanu Behl

GENRE:Crime

Lynch is served

This film is not for the mildhearted or the lily-livered. It has all the elements for a gripping trailer: a man being mutilated with a hammer, a woman urinating through her denims, a brutally-executed mugging scene that leaves the assailants blood-smeared and a character hopeful of an escape from his reality. These visuals will pick one's curiosity about the sequence of events leading to them and one would even assume a severe story line. But this is a loosely packaged tale of desperate measures and has situations forcibly driving consequences. It is a hollow yet terrifying tale of a family that is consciously irresponsible for their actions.

For someone in his late teens, Titli (Shashank Arora) has a singularly piercing and forlorn gaze, probably symbolic of his unfulfilled dreams. The youngest in the family, he has elder brothers, Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) and Baawla (Amit Sial). The family also has an almost-mute father (Lalit Behl), who coughs more than he speaks. But coughing runs in the family, in fact, coughing accompanied by clearing of throat while brushing teeth is a family trait so obsessively portrayed that one wonders if a sub-plot revolves around the family's battle with tuberculosis. It doesn't. The family business is lynching and car jacking on deserted highways. When Titli's plan of escaping the family's rotten ways is established, his brothers decide on getting him married. The selected bride Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi) doesn't bring any calm to the chaos and the alliance is only a front to work things out with her ex-boyfriend, Prince. We endure one gruesome scene after another, till the film ends on a hopeful note.

The film sketches some beautifully awkward silences. The one that tops the list is when Titli is about to execute his ingenious plan: hammering his wife's hand as the act promises a happy consequence (no spoilers here). He doesn't want her to endure pain so he administers an anesthetic, which takes a while to kick in. Neelu suggests, 'thoda wait karlo' and so they do, with little else to say to each other. While this wait is a few seconds long, it seems forever. Then there's a pseudo David Lynch-ish dream sequence. Titli is frantically climbing up flights of stairs of an under-construction building while bumping into photo frames, dropping from above.

Many films have showcased the business of mugging on deserted highways. From Navdeep Singh's gritty NH10 to Amit Kumar's terrifying short, The Bypass (starring Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui). Consequently, the disgraceful act doesn't draw the same stun and seems like a subject that would only attract foreign audiences and festival ferns on the DVD cover.

Ranvir Shorey packs in one of the best performances of his career, whether he's mouthing expletives or hammering down on someone's face, he is determined and immersed in the job at hand. Despite playing the most reckless character in the film, he layers it with shades of sentiment, lending his character a distinct emotional vulnerability. Shashank Arora manages his title role with constraint and his sudden bursts of rage only testify that his character is made from the same mold as his brothers. Shivani Raghuvanshi essays a character that swings between silently resolute and irrationally submissive and she is aptly cast.

Debutant director Kanu Behl has evidently tucked in scenes that he wanted in his first film; whether it complements the mood of the film is not a consideration. Yet, he should be credited for pulling off a film with a wafer-thin story that wins your attention through the 117 minutes of its runtime.

Titli seems to be made with the single-minded objective of leaving audiences with an unsettling feeling-A constant discomfort that can't be shrugged off, like a nasty itch at an unreachable part of your back. If this is what you seek from cinema, book your tickets now.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/entertainment/bollywood/Film-review-Titli/articleshow/49588346.cms

Edited by touch_of_pink - 9 years ago

Quote

Rangaaa

@Rangaaa

Sparkler

+ 4

Posted: 9 years ago

**Review: Titli is an impressive directorial debut**

October 30, 2015 13:58 IST

Titli is a solid directorial debut but it could have been so much more, feels Raja Sen.

There's a world of difference between red and maroon.

You might not expect him to know that distinction, but Vikram does.

A security guard at a mall who moonlights as a carjacker, Vikram is furious at that very fact: that you think he doesn't know better.

In one of the finest performances I've seen this year, Ranvir Shorey is spectacular as the elder brother in Kanu Behl's Titli, the story of a dysfunctional family of bottom-dwellers. It is a performance of rage and nuance, of unexpected tenderness and misplaced nobility, and bloodthirsty cynicism. Shorey nails it, and it's hard to take your eyes off Vikram.

Behl's film, however, is not about Vikram.

It is about the youngest of three brothers, Titli, a kid scrounging up to buy a parking-space in a shopping mall, looking to some kind of future away from the hellhole where he lives.

As setups go, it's super, and Behl -- shooting on 16mm film -- gives us a sparsely coloured, visually impoverished movie.

Behl has the look right and his ensemble is impressive, but the film itself suffers from too much navel-gazing. Too much time is devoted to purposely phlegmatic meditations and too little on fleshing out actual characters, showing us how they tick.

We are pointed to characters and their contradictions but -- save for Shorey's Vikram and Shivani Raghuvanshi's fabulously acted Neelu -- they are not explored beyond their helplessness. There is no acuteness; all we really know about them is that they are all miserable. And the narrative, almost sadistically, impels us to suffer along with them.

For a film that takes pains to looks realistic, it hinges on too feeble a plot, a raise-money-in-limited-time wheeze that could have been done in many ways, like in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels fashion or, given producer Dibakar Banerjee's work, like in his resoundingly magical Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Titli does very boldly to eschew both comedy and style for a more arid approach, but the narrative rationale is flimsy: What, for instance, is happening to the money from all the carjacked cars?

Shashank Arora, who plays Titli, does so with the right kind of world-weariness and has enough hunger and desperation in his eyes -- and, it must be said, on his frame -- but his Titliness isn't given enough rein. He goes through the film wearing the same expression of bewildered blankness, and while that inert nothingness is becoming fashionably confused with top-notch acting in Hindi cinema these days, it doesn't help flesh out the character. He does erupt for one moment of white-hot rage later in the film but it, appearing so abruptly, serves more to derail the film than anything else.

Arora isn't a bad actor and wears his inscrutability consistently, but a film like this needs a preternatural talent tugging it along, someone meteoric and jawdropping, like a Gael Garcia Bernal maybe.

Or, in the absence of that, Shorey in the lead role. Now that would have been a helluva movie.

It's a pity because this is a fine, thoughtfully crafted film.

Siddharth Dewan's cinematography is voyeuristically intrusive, with some strikingly poignant compositions highlighting the film's authentic art-direction.

There is a moment, for example, when Titli is on a horse, being led to his marriage. The horse looks as unwilling as Titli, as the green frame shows us the horse, Titli and the disinterested child made to sit in front of him on the saddle, passing in front of a storefront sign for Seth Medicos. In this world, even a baaraat is not allowed the grandeur of escape.

Yet despite these deft visual nuances -- the dotted bandaid-knockoff on Vikram's hand, the bypass-surgery scar on Titli's father's chest, the way said father (Lalit Behl, the director's own father) scoops his sabzi into the roti -- the film begins to feel indulgent as it keeps showing them off.

Pauses between conversation seem reasonable in isolation, and are well-written, but when stacked one atop another as they are in this film, they begin to feel tediously long.

Nihilism and bleakness lend themselves well to cinema, but there needs to be something compelling for the audience: Titli errs on the side of the comatose.

In its admirable refusal to steer clear of style -- or, indeed, obvious entertainment tropes -- it is often too bland and, by the end, too long.

Fleabitten characters aren't the problem at all; just last year, Anurag Kashyap's Ugly was made up of even more unsavoury characters, but it was impossible to look away from the screen.

Titli offers up dry nakedness as if that is enough to impress.

In many a scene it is -- and, don't get me wrong, this is a stirringly solid directorial debut -- but in many a scene it feels too intentionally underdone.

There is a scene, for example, where an arm is broken. It is a strongly scripted moment but, while intending to shock us, the film looks away too easily. It starts off with searing intensity, hits peak when there is an alarmingly casual plea to stop the breaking, and then peters off into not merely a tame hammer-wound but, alas, a scene that loses its momentum.

The actors work the scene sincerely but it could have been so much more.

Instead, Behl chooses not to look away when a character throws up in a sickeningly long scene, so long it feels gratuitous.

Because there's a difference between showing the retching and the wretched.

3/5 stars Rediff Rating:

Raja Sen / Rediff.com in Mumbai