Talvar (2015)

Original title

तलवार

Directed by

Meghna Gulzar

Genre

crime film, thriller film, suspense film

Country

India

Runtime

2h 12m

Rated

UA

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 196 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A teenage girl and a servant are murdered. The film shows three different investigations into the crime, each pointing to a different suspect. It looks at how the evidence changes depending on who is asking the questions.

investigativeambiguousclinicalunsettlingproceduralshiftingsobertense

What happens

Talvar (transl. Sword), released internationally as Guilty, is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language crime-thriller drama film directed by Meghna Gulzar and written by Vishal Bhardwaj. Produced by Bhardwaj and Vineet Jain, the film is loosely based on the 2008 Noida double murder case involving a teenage girl and her family's servant. Starring Irrfan Khan, Konkona Sen Sharma and Neeraj Kabi, the film follows the investigation of a case from three different perspectives in which her parents are either guilty or innocent of the murder charges by the police investigation, the first Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe and an investigation by a different CBI team. It was conceived by Bhardwaj after he met some of the police officials who were investigating the case. He later met Meghna, and expressed his desire to produce a film with her; they then came up with the idea of making a film about the real-life case. They researched the case for two years and found several contradictions, with each view having some validity. Bhardwaj's script was an example of the Rashomon effect. Pankaj Kumar was the film's director of photography, and A. Sreekar Prasad was its editor. Talvar premiered at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival in the special-presentation section, and was screened at the 2015 BFI London Film Festival and the Busan International Film Festival. It was released theatrically in India on 2 October 2015 to mostly positive reviews, with particular praise for its writing and performances; however, many of the critics felt that the film was very biased towards the parents. The film was a moderate box-office success, grossing ₹45.9 crore (US$4.8 million). Bhardwaj received the Best Adapted Screenplay Award for Talvar at the 63rd National Film Awards, and Prasad received the Award for Best Editing at the 61st Filmfare Awards. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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