Demons (2024): A doomed tale of fragile egos and rage.

Rohit Mittal’s Demons, currently streaming on Zee5, is a tale of a couple trying to rebuild their faith in their marriage. Over the years, they had allowed their unresolved and negative feeling towards each other to build up leading to a burst up. As they dissect their troubled relationship their insecurities and psychological wounds are examined unflinchingly. The raw dialogues and charged performances make the film an uncomfortable yet blazing perspective of the marriage in question.

The film begins with the married couple Vinay and Megha returning home from a late-night party. Later, Megha wants to have sex with Vinay, but he is disinterested. As a result, a brawl ensues. The next morning Megha confesses to Vinay that she cheated on her. Things go aggressively downhill from here, with noxious, hateful, and desperate quarrels deflecting blame upon each other. Nothing much happens in the story—just two ordinary lives coming apart at the seams.

When the film begins, it’s evident the couples exist in a rhythm that illustrates how the premise is not built upon a conventional story with the magical powers of love. It becomes a stark reminder that such encounters exist more frequently in reality than in fiction. It helps the filmmaker to highlight the broader guilt issues at play. The couples are fighting what seems like a losing battle. The film never tries to reduce complicated issues to easy solutions, so the solutions are not easily digestible. The film is just not in the business of offering solutions. So, from the beginning, Mittal plunges straightaway into this kind of fraught territory and builds toward a head-on confrontation with mortality, not to mention existential questions about purpose and meaning. It prevents the film from becoming simply a clinical exercise in mismanaged ennui and transforms it into a turbulent dissection of romantic longevity.

The most striking parts of Demons centre on the idea that couples like Megha and Vinay think that they deserve unconditional empathy. They don’t want this life. They’re living it almost by accident. They are detached from their emotions, turning them into distracted spectators of their gestures, severing the link between action and feeling. The film is filled with a series of emotional shocks. The element of suspense that arises from it is muted and refracted. As we become involved in their arguments, we question whether their love for each other is still functional. Is their search for a happy and contented life real? The filmmaker’s concern is nothing less than the human condition itself, stripped of melodrama and offered up to the viewer to either face up to or reject outright. 

The performances by Vinay Sharma and Swati Semwal are convincing. When they quarrel with one another it authentically reveals the strain in their relationship. The cinematography by Ashok Meena effectively captures the dilemmas and conflicts of the characters. It adds a calmness to each of the scenes. The sound design by Nishant Agarawal balances the silences between the dialogues in a manner that enhances the film’s mood. Mittal, who has also edited the film, juxtaposes the scenes together harmoniously into an unbroken flow. 

Viewers who believe forgiveness has healing power and helps us get back on our feet will be disappointed with the film’s resolution. When trust is broken, it can lead to an incurable wound, which in turn can result in a cruel step. Demons is a tough watch and certainly not for everyone, But sometimes it’s necessary to point that high-powered finger of perception at ourselves and ask what we are truly capable of.