Ben Rekhi’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s Booker acclaimed novel brings genuine weight and restraint to a story that could easily have tipped into melodrama. Manoj Bajpayee plays Yogesh Mishra, a widowed teacher content within Mumbai’s crumbling Vishram housing colony, whose settled life is upended when builder Dharmen Shah, played with quiet menace by Boman Irani, offers residents a lucrative buyout to clear the way for a glossy new tower. As neighbours succumb one by one, Yogesh becomes the last, stubborn holdout.
A quietly devastating central performance
Bajpayee anchors the film with remarkable economy, conveying anger, helplessness and resolve through expression alone rather than raised voices or lengthy speeches. Divya Dutta matches him note for note as Sangeeta, a neighbour whose warm exterior slowly curdles into something far more calculating once Shah’s promises take hold. Their scenes together carry real tension, and Irani’s builder is all the more unsettling for his controlled, unshowy menace rather than pantomime villainy.
Restrained rather than spectacular
The film wisely resists the urge to turn this into a rousing underdog triumph, instead tracking how money, fear and self-interest slowly corrode a community from within. Some subplots, including a health scare for Shah, feel underdeveloped and could have been trimmed without loss. What remains is a sober, thoughtful drama about the human cost of redevelopment, elevated by performances that never chase spectacle when quiet devastation will do.
