Susanna Anna Marie Johannes has a problem - 'duniya ke saare galat aadmi uski kismat mein likhe the'. And she is a survivor who would rather kill her wayward husbands rather than leave them. So you have Priyanka Chopra giving it her all as the tormented Susanna whose hope for a lasting love withers with age. Husband after husband proves undeserving of her love and is summarily disposed of.
At a young age she marries the older Major Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nitin Mukesh) who stifles her spirit with his insane jealousy and egotism. Next in line is rockstar Jimmy Stetson aka Jamshed Rathore (John Abraham) who woos her with his guitar but falls quickly to drug addiction. Poet Wasiullah aka Musafir (Irfan Khan) appears to be a harbour for peaceful love but turns out to be a sadomasochist.
By now Susanna is middle aged and a more than a little disillusioned but this doesn't stop the long list of men wanting to marry her. Russian spy/scientist Nicolai Vronski courts her with 'shudh' Hindi and Bollywood dialogues till she agrees to marry him. Only to realise that he is duping her and is already married. To stave off a police investigation, Susanna is forced to marry the exploitative and horny Inspector Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor). He is sent to meet his maker at the earliest opportunity. The elderly grieving black widow is now tortured enough to make a suicide attempt. In this she is thwarted by Dr. Madhusudan Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah) who is a comforting mix of allopathy, naturopathy and spirituality rolled into one. That is until he tries to kill Susanna for her money. Susanna replies with a game of Russian Roulette revealing her frustration with her own accursed life and Tarafdar joins the other husbands. By now unable to handle so much pain, Susanna burns down her house and is believed to be dead herself.
Susanna's story is told through the eyes of the young orphan boy, Arun, who she brings up in her household and who eventually becomes a Forensic scientist (Vivaan Shah) seeking to confirm her death. His love for and worshipful obsession with her leads him to Pondicherry where he finds Susanna alive and well and about to be a 'bride' for the seventh time...
Vishal Bharadwaj's latest offering is based on a short story by Ruskin Bond titled "Susanna's Seven husbands" and to give the devil his due, Vishal again tries something different with his black-widow story. There is a lot of detailing like topical references to Babri Masjid dispute, the Berlin Wall coming down, the IC 814 hijacking, shootouts at Mumbai etc. to show the passage of time. The curiosity value for the audience is in figuring out why and how the next husband will be bumped off. The devices range from panthers, to pistols, to even Viagra! Priyanka Chopra puts in a very commendable performance and is undoubtedly one of the finer actresses of her generation (just imagine Katrina trying to pull off something like this and you will know what I mean). Among the husbands, Irfan and Naseer stand out with their assured presence despite being just a part of a much larger whole. Ruskin Bond himself has a cameo in the movie. As does Konkona Sen Sharma in yet another unaffected and endearing performance. Usha Uthup however is completely wasted in her role as Susanna's macabre maid.
The movie however, is just not engrossing enough. The first half is especially tedious with long winded and unnecessary sequences like the fight between the Major and Gunga the servant and Jimmy's raucous songs. The actual killing of the husbands is also hardly shown and is more often done by her servants than by Susanna herself.
Bharadwaj's big problem here is that the transition from the pages of a book to the big screen does not happen smoothly. One is constantly left wondering how much better it would have been to read the story to experience its darkness and hidden spaces better. Watching the dimly lit sequences, the Greek chorus like characters of Susanna's servants who help her with each crime, Arun the sly kid whose love for Susanna borders on Oedipal and Susanna herself who appears to have an Elektra complex make one feel like maybe a play would have worked better than a movie. The need to justify Susanna's actions in true Hindi cinema tradition also feels forced. I wonder what the movie would have been like if she were to gleefully dispose of her husbands rather than make it seem like a painful duty.
Falling into the grey area between 'artsy' and mainstream cinema does not work so well this time. When the movie ended the confusion of the audience was almost palpable.
So am left wishing for a more tightly knit script, sharper dialogues and better makeup for Priyanka (who looks hideous in most scenes).
Rating: 5/10
