There’s an expression in liter­ary circles called the “writ­ers’ writer”. This is someone whose work is highly admired/ talked about among other writers and yet he/she may be relatively unknown to the general public. The same expression can be bor­rowed in the case of films, and for directors in particular. Speak­ing of modern Hindi cinema, one director who deserves the label of “directors’ director” is Sriram Raghavan, the 55-year-old writer/ director of thrillers. His works enjoy cult following among aspir­ing filmmakers and film nerds but he has never been able to bask in global fame like Anurag Kashyap, nor is he much-talked about like Vishal Bhardhwaj, Dibakar Baner­jee or Neeraj Pandey. Raghavan’s limited appeal owes to his sticking to his niche of thriller/ suspense. With the exception of the spy-thriller ‘Agent Vinod’, all of his films seem to take place in the same world, where ordinary lives are thrown asunder by macabre crimes and moral decay. Two of his films —‘Ek Hasina Thi’ and ‘Bad­lapur’—are revenge flicks. And the cult favorite ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ is a racy pulp thriller about a man who digs himself a rabbit hole as he tries to conceal his crimes.

His latest film ‘Andhadhun’ (styl­ized as AndhaDhun) is filled with his trademark touches and I am happy to report that it’s a supe­rior companion piece to ‘Johnny Gaddaar’, in the sense that it’s a plot-driven film thriving on slow and naturally built taut moments. The film does not bother about fabricating suspense through mys­tery and the structure isn’t that of a whodunit. The audience is rather allowed to play God.

Raghavan understands that if viewers know everything about the characters while the characters know nothing about each other, it makes for a more participative viewing. We hold their secrets and have a larger context to feel amused or scared, even when these characters exhibit most ordi­nary of gestures.

The film’s title can be inter­preted in two ways. Literally, it translates as ‘reckless’ or ‘rash’, and figuratively it means a ‘blind tune’. It’s a clever title to a story that blends both these elements. We have a blind pianist (Ayush­mann Khurrana) whose talent makes him a novelty at a Mumbai bar. Things look bright for him: he has a budding romance with the bar-owner (Radhika Apte), and he hopes to put together enough money to strike it big in London. Then, one eventful day, in search of extra cash he knocks the door of an apartment belonging to a washed-up Bolly­wood actor of the 70s (Anil Dha­wan), who wants the pianist to play a private concert for him and his wife (Tabu) on their marriage anni­versary. But the day that promised a gentle, jazz-filled romantic cele­bration shifts to an uncomfortable and nervous frenzy.

Raghavan orchestrates the film like a seasoned music conductor. He begins at a leisurely pace, put­ting Khurrana’s reputation as the Hugh Grant of Hindi small-town romantic comedies to good use. The opening plays out like a fluffy, breezy romantic comedy. As the normalcy settles in, he instantly disrupts it with a gut-wrenching punch. This contrast escalates in intensity and events pile up and the director pumps his composition with a shot of nervous energy and unpredictability.

Khurrana’s performance helps the protagonist remain likeable even when he ventures into anti-hero territory. He softens and hardens believably, and keeps his morality intact. His transforma­tion is not as pessimistic as that of protagonists in Raghavan’s ear­lier films. Likewise, Tabu pulls off different shades of her character: as a noir-ish seductress, grieving wife and a master manipulator. She’s downright sympathetic and also genuinely scary. Radhika Apte is in a short but effective role. Other actors like Anil Dhawan, Manav Vij, Zakir Hussain, Chhaya Kadam and Ashwini Kalsekar are all given their own moments and dialogues to shine.

‘Andhadhun’ is proof that nobody knows how to spin the thriller genre better than Sriram Raghavan. The film not only has the marks of a mas­ter storyteller but also of a serious fanboy who injects 80s Bollywood nostalgia with the sensibilities of classic American and European films from Alfred Hitchcock and Louis Malle. I personally hope ‘Andhadhun’ succeeds in giving Sriram Raghavan the recognition he duly deserves.