Jahaan Chaar Yaar Movie Review

critic’s rating: 



3.0/5

Jahaan Chaar Yaar is a film about four women who decide to let go of the shackles of married life for a bit and chill together in Goa. Their escape turns sour when a foreigner is found killed in their hotel room. They aren’t just the prime suspects in a murder, but are also the target of a mysterious killer hell-bent on removing all evidence. How the close bond they share helps them overcome the hurdles forms the crux of the film.

It’s seldom that our filmmakers try to make a film with 30-plus women as the protagonists. Kudos to director Kamal Pandey, who has also written the film, for attempting that. Domesticity becomes stifling after a while in middle class homes, especially for housewives who are forced by circumstances to not have a life of their own. So you empathise with the perils of Shivangi (Swara Bhaskar), who is emotionally manipulated to become the unpaid servant of her husband and in-laws, Sakina (Pooja Chopra), whose husband wants to leave her, and Neha (Shikha Talsania), whose husband has been cheating on her. So when their rich friend Mansi (Meher Vij) cons them into visiting her in Mumbai, saying she’s dying of cancer and later reveals she’s planned to take them all for a girls’ vacation in Goa, they’re shocked initially but give in. The director keeps their middle-class mores intact. They roam around the beaches not in beachwear but in sarees, drink nothing stronger than beer; feel ashamed about ogling men; and are flustered when they get a call from their families. The trip is a guilty pleasure of sorts for them, where they can roam freely without feeling the burden of domestic life. We’d have been content with seeing them have one mild misadventure after another. But the director has pushed in a murder mystery in the mix as well. It’s when life gets all topsy-turvy, that they realise that they can’t be doormats all their lives and should learn to rebel.

The film is part comedy, part whodunit and partly a lesson on women’s empowerment. Thankfully, not every man is painted as a villain. The inspector investigating their case, played by Girish Kulkarni, is shown to be a staunch supporter of women’s rights. He not only stands up to his senior, who was cheating on his wife, but also tells the four friends to get out of the rut and sort their lives out. And they do it with dignity and sass, keeping their self-esteem intact. Where the film falters is in its depiction of the mystery and its denouement. It’s all too sudden, hurried and disjointed, and the mishandling of it jars this otherwise fine film.

Casting Swara Bhaskar, an actor known for her feminist views, as a woman who has lost all sense of identity after marriage was a risk indeed, but the actor has pulled off the role with panache. She’s such a doormat in the film that you want to shake her up and tell her to stop and find a life. She hasn’t put in a false note and has given a most sincere performance. Shikha Talsania and Pooja Chopra are versions of her and are successful in putting forward the angst and insecurity felt by their respective characters. The affable Meher Vij too is cast against type. The strong, resilient mother of Secret Superstar (2017) is something of a shrew here. It’s an interesting character, which we wish was written better.

While Jahaan Chaar Yaar is a film with strong feminist vibes and carries good performances, it does falter on execution, especially in the second half. The film is a mixed bag for sure, and let’s hope its message finds an audience.

Trailer : Jahaan Chaar Yaar