review of aparna sen's 'iti mrinalini - an unfinished letter'

‘Iti Mrinalini – an unfinished letter’; taking my cue from the title … there is a sense of an unfinished experience, after watching the film! From the director of ’36 Chowringhee Lane’ & ‘Mr. & Mrs. Iyer’& I would like to add ’15, Park Avenue’, except for the fact that I have to confess that I managed to be fascinated by the film, without fully understanding it, this new offering, starring Sen Senior (Aparna herself!) & Sen Junior (the hugely talented Konkona Sen!), disappoints!
A run of the mill, predictable story, sketchily written, of an aging actress, contemplating suicide & slipping into flashback mode, which reveals a career strewn with broken affairs, a pregnancy that has to be hidden from the media & a daughter, whom she can’t take on as a beti & has to make do with being the favorite aunt ….. hmmmmmmm …. Here we go again! Indian cinema seems obsessed with these ghissa-pita, dukh bhari kahanis, of actresses who scale great heights of success, but of course, fail, when they attempt to lead a normal, sukhi zindagi!
Yeah, when Shyam Benegal wove a gripping movie around the same theme, with the fabulous Smita Patil, it worked & how!!!
There are so many actresses around, who have had happy careers, rock solid relationships, kids & gone on to do other stuff, like politics, or cookery shows (what a fall there was, my country men, watching the dhak dhak girl,Madhuri Dixit, wearing a garish chamak chalo sari, playing second fiddle to Sanjeev Kapoor!) or even making candles! Why don’t our directors get inspired?
Konkona Sen looks ravishing as the young actress, in her stunning Bengal cottons,silks & exquisite silver jewellery! (I actually checked the credits keenly, to see if the source of this beautiful silver had been mentioned, but sadly, it’s a raaz ki baat!) & she is a fine, competent actress, simply let down by a lousy script & sketchy direction!
The same can’t be said about mama Aparna – she is a stilted & affected actress & you realize why she had to take to direction, where thankfully she found her calling!
Props for the packaging – good looking, arty-varty dudes with accented English & Hindi, lovely houses, ethnically done up, bright cottons & silks & yep, the jewellery that I lusted after!

But sets, clothes, good looking dudes & dollops of literature don’t a good movie maketh - “Iti Mrinalini” proves my point!