The Hindi version, then, blunts the original, even while it both stylises and sensationalises it. The smallest moment is given the music treatment of a gripping reveal — even if what we are seeing is merely a bag of cash exchanging hands. Sudhir K. Chaudhary’s top shots, his glistening frames, produce a film that is at once more beautiful and more burnished. But every gesture, stare, and glare is given this cinematic polish, whether it is needed at all. There is a scene in the second half, added to the screenplay, not part of the original, where Akshaye Khanna, the new IG who is investigating the case, enters the house of Vijay when he isn’t there and terrorises the wife and children without saying much. The scene is trying to establish how guilt emerges in the face of the guilty. But it is one entirely of style, of confected nerves.
While Tabu is allowed to inhabit a gray character in a way only she can — eliciting your sympathy even as you see her claws tearing into flesh — it is Shriya Saran whose performance and character’s cultural translation that baffled me. One of the most moving stretches of the Malayalam Drishyam 2 was the existential ennui that the wife was struggling with in the interim years. There were shots of her doing chores in the house, alone, looking out, tired, worried, wondering if she will ever not be tired and not be worried. The banter between husband and wife emerged from but also skirted this tension.
With Nandini, however, there is so much brimming in the surface of her face, that when she is tensed, her body crumples, you can see the pits of her neck as she inhales and holds her breath. It is an entirely physical, not a psychological portrait. They prefer having her naive, a babe in the woods, as opposed to fleshing her out, giving her endearing eccentricities and frustrating limitations. She is never allowed to be the mother of two daughters, the wife of a man; never given that grumbling, scolding, reassuring quality that made Rani from the Malayalam film such a memorable character. For me, it was these detailings that made the film worth its while. Because the serpentine explanations, the far fetched, what even the film calls “risky” and, frankly, reckless last patch of the film has this eye-rolling convenience that is neither smart nor suitable. You don’t walk out of Drishyam films satisfied because they are smart, but because characters you grew to love are finally safe. But, you can ask, rightfully, where are these characters in the Hindi adaptation?
