Do Patti - Sibling Rivalry without resolutions

Way back in 1969, when Bengali cinema was largely Black-and-White and Uttam Kumar spelt magic at the box office, I happened to watch Mon Niye (All About the Mind), a Bengali film directed by Salil Sen, a successful filmmaker. In the midst of a huge roster of films portraying syrupy, soppy and sentimental films featuring twins, siblings, etc. who, in many films, are not aware of each other’s existence till it is convenient for the dramatics to bring them together Mon Niye offered a welcome departure to narrate a psychological thriller with two identical twins. Unlike many films featuring identical twins, they are not separated at birth but are very different from each other. Examples are aplenty from Ram Aur Shyam through Sita Aur Gita, Dhoom 3 and many others.

Mon Niye however, features identical twins where Suparna is schizophrenic while her twin Aparna, is chirpy, active and normal. But no one knows about Suparna’s illness. Aparna is okay with her twin but not Suparna as she suspects her husband, a famous writer, of having an affair with Aparna. Do Patti follows the line of sibling rivalry and jealousy between the ‘good’ twin Saumya (Kriti Sannon) and the “bad” twin Shailee (Kriti Sannon) where Saumya is just puzzled about why Saumya hates her. The illness(es) of Saumya, who is the weaker and quieter between the two are not explained at all medically without which the story loses much logic, not permitted in a serious psychological thriller like Do Patti.

Soumya, the very quiet, simple and ideal-wife material, falls in love with Dhruv (Shaheer Sheikh) the only son of a multimillionaire father who runs a paragliding tourism centre. Enter Shailee from wherever she was and immediately makes a beeline of Dhruv who makes no bones of entering into a torrid affair with Dhruv though she is aware that Dhruv and Soumya will get married. They do get married but Soumya realizes that Dhruv is violent and abuses his wife when she begins to pine for a child. But Soumya refuses to carry her complaint to the police, headed in the hilly place by none other than a gritty, bold, single Vidya Jyoti (Kajol), the no-nonsense police woman who heads the local police station. Perhaps the hill station is relatively free of crime so we see Vidya Jyoti forever parked with her jeep near the house where Soumya lives with her husband Dhruv, foster mother (Tanvi Azmi) and Shailee who stays on much after the wedding, challenging Soumya with her ability to “keep” her husband which pushes Soumya to hold on to the relationship never mind the physical abuse by the husband.

Though the film is touted as a thriller it is more a half-baked psychological exposure of twin rivalry which pushes a thorn between the marital relationship between Dhruv and Soumya. Though Shelly at times question Saumya about whether Dhruv is really bashing her up but suspects Soumya about lying about being bashed up by Dhruv.

Vidya Jyoti is determined to arrest and charge Dhruv for domestic violence specially after the foster mother makes a FIR against him. But Soumya lets her down. Needless songs disturb the narrative as neither are they very good nor are they necessary. The visuals of the parachutes puncturing the sky enough to widen the horizon and adds to the visual ambience of the film mostly set in the interiors of Soumya’s apartment or in the police station. Vidya Jyoti is taken away from the case because of Dhruv’s high level connections but when Soumya and Dhruv go paragliding on their wedding anniversary, there is an accident and Dhruv is arrested on a previous charge of murder along with this case of attempted murder of his wife Soumya.

From this point on, however, the film, apart from the sterling performances of Kajol, Kriti Sannon, Shaheer Sheikh and Tanvi Azmi, begins to go completely downhill specially after Dhruv is arrested and sent to jail for 15 years while the two twins are now as close as two peas in a pod for God Alone Knows what reason. Kriti shines in her dual role distinguished by the way the twins are dressed, the way they use their body language and their behaviour which is enough for the audience to find out which is which, but not why? Kajol can set even a dead character alive with her electrically charged performance and Do Patti is no exception.

Vidya Jyoti suddenly discovers that Dhruv might not have attempted to murder his wife and calls back the case placing one of the twins in the guilty box. Which of the twins, one never gets to know. The childhood mystery that led to the conflict between Soumya and Shailee remains a mystery as well and poor Dhruv remains in prison. If Vidya Jyoti has a law degree but never practiced as a lawyer, how is she permitted to practice law without a registration or if she did have one, it is probably outdated? Then how does no one in authority question her eligibility to suddenly turn a practicing lawyer? Her assistant (Sanjay Mishra) is often left with the responsibility of taking care of Vidya Jyoti’s rabbit. What role does the rabbit have to play in this whole story? Kanika Dhillon, the story and scriptwriter who has also co-produced the film with Kriti Sannon appears to be an overrated writer in my frank opinion that is why Do Patti has such a flawed script. Poor Shashanka Trivedi seems to have been inescapably trapped in this rigmarole of a story and a flawed script.

The best of acting, picturesque locals and rich visuals cannot save a thriller where the script had not bothered to fill in the blanks or join the missing dots. Who had attempted to kill whom? Did Dhruv really attempt to take the life of Soumya? Or was it the shrewish Shelly who knows paragliding and there is a key-switch between the twins before the paragliding happens, or is it the vengeful Soumya who trained herself to paraglide and lock and unlock the harness belt?

To sum up, Do Patti is a thorough failure as a thriller where the team seems to have lost interest in the rest of the film after the interval. Sad, isn’t it?

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