Nawazuddin Siddiqui-Bhumi Pednekar Film Is Classic Case of Noble Attempt Gone Wrong

Afwaah is set in a small constituency named Sawalpur in the north-western India. Vikram Singh, a local politician, aspires to win the next state elections and is set to get married to Nivi Singh, the daughter of one of the most influential political members with who he has formed a coalition. While canvassing for the election one day, Vikram gets injured when a peaceful campaign suddenly turns violent. During the scuffle, he whispers something into the ears of Chandan, one of his trusted aides, following which the latter holds a dagger and marches towards a meat shop killing the Muslim butcher who runs it. The entire episode gets caught on a reporter’s camera. When it gets aired, trouble arises as people assume that Chandan killed the butcher on Vikram’s order.

On watching the news, Nivi is devastated. She decides to break off her engagement with him and runs away one night. While on the run, she meets Rahab Ahmed, an ad-man, who has returned home after a stint in America. Soon, rumours are made to float around that it’s a case of Love Jihad wherein Rahab has kidnapped Nivi and forcefully wants to get married to her. Vikram decides to circulate a video of Nivi and Rahab’s alleged elope to save his own image and soon, it starts spreading like a wildfire. How a rumour, much like a ruthless monster, holds the power to taint lives and careers follows the crux of Afwaah.

The film has a fantastic and extremely nuanced premise on paper. It could have captured the imagination of the audience, made them sit up and think deep. It could have been so much more. But it doesn’t because the lofty promises made fizzle out like a damp firecracker soon enough. While it manages to touch upon every aspect of how rumours are often misconstrued as the gospel truth and the role that traditional and digital media play in reinforcing the same, the story of Afwaah never really tugs at your heartstrings. The characters go through the murkiest agony but your heart never goes out to them. The interplay of greed, power and ambition in a politically charged climate of today is explored but it doesn’t lend much to the narrative. The writing is bumpy and the execution has several loopholes and there are many questions that are left unanswered.

We are, time and again, told that phone networks aren’t at their best in the desert but the makers decide to make phones and internet work at their own convenience. While in one scene, a doctor tells Rahab that all phone lines are jammed due to the imposition of Section 144, in the next scene, we see Vikram making calls without the slightest deterrence. In another sequence, a dance performance at the Nahargarh Literature Festival is made to stop after a framed perpetrator tries to barge inside the palace but in the subsequent scenes, the makers constantly make use of intercuts and jump cuts to shift from a gruesome scene to the dance performance.