Monica 2011 Movie Review

Monica 2011 Movie Review

Monica 2011 Movie Preview
Monica 2011 Movie Trailer

Some stories intrigue you. And if they happen to borrow from real life, the curiosity to watch the screen adaptation only enhances considerably. More so if the story talks of the stormy and tumultuous relationship between a scheming politician, who aspires to be the Chief Minister of a North India state and a political journalist, who aspires to achieve the star status in her field of work. Now add love, lust, conspiracy, scams, deception and murder to the plotline and what emerges is a piece of work that stands apart from stories that we are habituated to watching on the Hindi screen.

Come to think of it, the trend of female actors essaying the part of a journo on the Hindi screen isn't new. Right from Sridevi [MR INDIA] to Dimple Kapadia [KRANTIVEER] to Juhi Chawla [PHIR BHI DIL HAI HINDUSTANI] to Preity Zinta [LAKSHYA] to Konkona Sen Sharma [PAGE 3] to Deepal Shaw [A WEDNESDAY] to Kangna Ranaut [KNOCK OUT] to Rani Mukerji recently [NO ONE KILLED JESSICA], the fearless media person has been witnessed in varied avtaars. But the part Divya Dutta portrays in MONICA is a tad different from the ones mentioned above.

MONICA is not just about a media person, but also looks at the various roles that she portrayed in her life - wife of an alcoholic, mother of an illegitimate child, a go-getter, ambitious woman who "has the access to the pants of a powerful politician" [that's a dialogue from the film] and finally, a woman scared for her life… How she gets caught in a vicious game of murky politics, becomes a fugitive, besides a mental wreck before she is brutally murdered, makes the story smoking hot. In fact, the film clearly illustrates that ambitions are not only limited to men; even women can be overly ambitious.


Supposedly seeking inspiration from real-life scams and controversies, MONICA depicts the transformation of a small-town school girl, a victim of child abuse while watching a movie [QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK] at a theatre in Lucknow, to a thick-skinned media person, who has no qualms of sleeping with a powerful politician as also a lady industrialist to achieve her goals. The various episodes in her stormy life have been told in a rather unusual manner by director Sushen Bhatnagar. Of course, a few vital chunks are missing, but the narrative keeps you hooked for most parts.