Heartless

Cast: Adhyayan Suman, Ariyana Ayam, Om Puri, Deepti Naval, Shekhar Suman, Madan Jain

Genre: Romantic Medical Thriller

Direction: Shekhar Suman

Production: Alka Suman

Story: Niranjan Iyengar

Screenplay : Nina Arora

Cinematographer: Derrick Fong

Music: Gaurav Dagaonkar

Editing : Akshara Prabhakar

Studio : Windmill Entertainment

Distribution: Windmill Entertainment

Release Date: 7^th February, 2014

Language: Hindi

Duration: 2 hours 17 minutes

Rating: 3/5 (Good)

Heartless, a directorial debut by Shekhar Suman. I heard Shekhar Suman sharing in one of the TV show during movie promotions that this movie is literally and figuratively heartless. True upto an extent. Shekhar Suman indeed dons the hat of a director in a very good manner. Though, I need to admit that this movie has its own share of flaws and fine points.

The first half of the movie is not built up logically and the characters are not defined nicely. I kept on wondering at the fast-motion love which blossomed between the lead pair Adhyayan Suman as Aditya Singh / Addi and Ariyana Ayam as Ria and tried to figure out what actually clicked between them. Why Aditya seemed to be unsure of himself, insecure in life, rebellious at times in spite of his businesswoman mother Ms. Gayatri Singh (played by Deepti Naval) showering him with her love, care, concern…it is not justified properly.

The first half gives a feeling that it is going to be the struggle of Aditya to cope up with a deadly heart disease, rather win over the disease with the support of Ria’s love. But, when the movie began, the noting said that it focuses on Anesthesia Awareness (a scary situation wherein a patient seemingly unconscious to the doctors is able to hear sounds and experience pain). So, my thoughts moved to the direction that probably, it could be a case of medical negligence. Could it be a love story or be a Medical Thriller…?

But the plot changes its track in the second half which kept me glued to the screen better than the first half ...the story begins here. With unpredictable and shocking twists, suspense is built up, still I wish the subject could have been dealt more clearly (though it is heartless on my part to say so).

Adhyayan looks good on screen, especially during the song sequences. Ariyana delivered an average performance, though looks pretty on screen.

Shekhar Suman as Cardiologist Samar Saxena is effortless in his performance. But the non-clarity (at times) of the script gets translated to his certain scenes as well.

Deepti Naval is great as Aditya’s mother, whose head-strong shrewd personality is shown on one side and on the other hand, a doting mother who lived for her son. Om Puri as Dr. Trehaan’s role is minimal yet pivotal to the movie.

Thumbs up for the exceedingly well shot scenes (especially Dubai) by Cinematographer Derrick Fong, a few nice songs (though out of place at times), a heart-touching emotional mother-son scene towards the end, no melodrama overpowering the characters… and above all a welcome break from the regular story…

It would be Heartless to write this off completely.