Monica, O My Darling is marketed as a “neo-noir,” a dark comedy that pays homage to classic blockbusters like the 1971 Nasir Hussain horror Caravan. It pays homage to traditional Hindi film thrillers and the fabled vamps of Hindi cinema—the ‘bad’, wicked women of Indian cinema who actually have a heart of gold.
As long as it pays homage to classic movies, Vasan Bala’s thriller Monica, O My Darling, about a small-town guy’s desire to maintain his status in the corporate world by pretending to love his boss’ foolish daughter, works.
But the movie doesn’t work as a dark comedy. The film slips out of control as the hero’s life transforms into a devilish snake and ladder game, full of slithery surprises and rough patches, and the audience ends up falling to the bottom dissatisfied with the trip and wondering what just happened.
In trying to emulate the success of Sriram Raghavan’s critically acclaimed and box office smash black comedy, the 2018 Andhadhun, director Vasan Bala (known for his directorial effort Mard ko Dard Nahi Hota and having co-written neo-noir Psycho Raman 2.0, cricket drama ’83, etc.) doesn’t quite succeed.
Andhadhun, which had a frenzied quality to it, always had a firm grip on the plot even as things spiraled out of hand as a result of people looking out for the best deal for themselves. Yogeshwar, who was a member of Andhadhun’s writing team, wrote Monica, oh my darling. Unfortunately, he is unable to deftly incorporate the horrific turns of fate, the astounding lack of human morals, and the dark humour into the narrative.
After setting up the scene for the ideal murder, Monica, O my Darling, which is an adaptation of the renowned Japanese author Keigo Hagioshimo’s Burutasu na shinzou novels (his more well-known book Devotion of Suspect X is also being made into a movie with Kareena Kapoor), somehow falters halfway through.
The clever one-liners and wry comebacks are also ineffective. This is especially true of the cop role played by Radhika Apte, who simply laughs hysterically every time she enters the frame and runs into her main suspect, Rajkummar Rao’s Jayant Arkhedkar, the robotics expert and blue-eyed boy of the software company Unicorn. Instead of being snarky, her lines like “I’m so beautiful, what can I do?” are aggravating.
Characters that are ambivalent anti-heroes and lack a sense of right or wrong, good or bad, are common in neo-noir movies. This genre’s appeal lies in the fact that there is something so repulsive and alluring about these characters. How far will you go to hide your bleeding, muddy footprints?
According to the box office success of a number of movies like Jigarthanda, Nelson’s Kolamavu Kokila and Doctor, Kumararaja’s spectacular black comedy Super Deluxe, etc., it appears that Tamil movie directors are more in tune with this genre.
Monica, Oh, My Darling gets off to a fairly promising start with a murder and the introduction of the office femme fatale in the form of Huma Qureshi (Monica Machado) with the dazzling cabaret song Yeh Ek Zindagi, which combines elements from yesteryear actor Helen’s frantic number Piya tu ab tu aaja (from which the title of Monica, O my darling has been taken) and an sm It’s fun to see this song.
Huma skillfully portrays the office seductress who appears to be happy sleeping with important company people, but lacking Helen’s sexiness and Sri Devi’s energy in the movie. Her justification is that she needs to extract as much money as she can from males who are plainly weak and spineless in order to pay her GST and tax (!)
Our small-town hero, Jayant, an ITT robotics wizard (Rajkummar Rao, to his credit, perseveres and is the one left to carry the bulk of the film’s responsibility), has just been appointed to the board of unicorns. He is unofficially acknowledged as the successor to the Unicorn’s fortunes by the founder’s bimbo daughter Niki Adhikari (Akansha Ranjan Kapoor). Despite the fact that he manipulates Niki, he is also having a sexual relationship with Monica, the office bomb, and this affair is about to blow out in his face.
The founder’s own son, Nishikant Adhikari (effectively Sikander Kher in a special appearance), who despises Jayant and refers to him as “scum from Angola,” watches him jealously from the sidelines (a fictional small town near Pune). But in order to defeat Monica, who is threatening to reveal her pregnancy, Nishikant and Jayant are compelled to work along with the business accountant, Arvind Swamy (played by Tamil actor Bhagavathy Perumal). The father might be any of them.
The rest of the movie is about how they decide to kill her, how their carefully thought-out plot goes horribly wrong, and the unexpected turn of events that follow. Another greasy employee, Gaurav More (Sukant Gore), harbors resentment over feeling “invisible” to his coworkers and is unable to look past his love for Shalu Vartak, the office sweetheart (Zayn Marie Khan).
In spite of the unusual story turns, the eccentrics who don’t appear crazy enough, and the last turning of the screw that seems to have been put on to achieve the macabre effect, Rajkummar Rao is able to keep the audience interested in the movie. Rao is flawless because he engages in dishonest behavior to maintain his good fortune even when those close to him are pushed away and there is growing evidence against him. He experiences moments of remorse and shame over the lengths to which he has gone. Perhaps the other actors in this humdrum thriller drama, which boldly don a dark comedy hat, don’t quite match his caliber.
With the exception of the introductory tune, the music is serviceable. Piya Tu ab to aa jaa is played in the background to give the stressful scenes some edge. The cinematography is visually appealing with lots of light and shadow interaction, and the editing is clean. Maybe the movie would have been more successful if it hadn’t pushed so hard to be absurd.
