Ugly

Ugly is a Hindi drama thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap.[2] The film was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.[3] It also opened the 2014 New York Indian Film Festival. The film stars Girish Kulkarni, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh and Surveen Chawla in pivotal roles. The film will also feature model turned TV actor Rahul Bhat in an important role and TV actor Abir Goswami in his last film appearance before his death in 2013. The film is produced by DAR Motion Pictures and Phantom Films. The digital poster of the film was released on May 8, 2013 and the film was released in India on December 26, 2014 after a delay about the inclsion of a warning about smoking.

Plot

Shalini (Tejaswini Kolhapure) is a middle-class housewife forced to stay at home by her second husband, police-chief Shoumik Bose(Ronit Roy). She considers suicide, and is about to shoot herself in the head with her husband’s gun when she is interrupted by her daughter, Kali (Anishika Shrivastava). Unaware of her mother’s activities moments earlier, Kali asks her mother to call her estranged father, Shalini’s ex-husband, Rahul (Rahul Bhat). It’s a Saturday, and Kali’s day with her father as decided in the custody agreement from the divorce. Rahul, an aspiring actor struggling to make it big, comes to take her for a drive but ignores her in favor of phone calls made to try to further his career. Finally, Rahul leaves Kali alone in the car to go to an audition and to check in with his agent, Chaitanya (Vineet Kumar Singh). When he returns to the car, Kali is missing.

Rahul first searches for Kali through the police, Chaitanya in tow. The local police-captain, Jadhav (Girish Kulkarni), does not take Rahul seriously until he realizes that Kali is the stepdaughter of the police-chief. Bose, out of hatred for Rahul, orders Jadhav to accuse Rahul of the kidnapping and to torture both Rahul and Chaitanya to interrogate and punish them. A game of one-upmanship follows as Rahul and Bose search for Kali while simultaneously attempting to upstage the other. After a period of time they sideline the investigation of her abduction and all of them accuse each other of kidnapping her for their personal benefit.

Cast

Rahul Bhat[4] as Rahul Kapoor/Varshney

Ronit Roy as Shoumik Bose

Tejaswini Kolhapure as Shalini Bose

Vineet Kumar Singh as Chaitanya Mishra

Surveen Chawla as Rakhi Malhotra

Siddhanth Kapoor as Siddhant

Girish Kulkarni as Inspector Jadhav

Abir Goswami as ACP Gupta

Madhavi Singh as ACP Upadhyay

Anshika Shrivastava as Kali Varshney

Alia Bhatt in a Cameo

Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Gangster Pujari

Delayed release over depiction of smoking[edit]

Anurag Kashyap had initially intended for Ugly to release in mid to late 2013. The Indian Censor Board required a "Smoking is Injurious to Health" sign to be posted in the lower right corner of the frame whenever a character in the film is shown smoking. Kashyap fought this regulation stating " it's the Health Ministry that should take the responsibility of curbing use of tobacco and work towards measures to control it and films should not be a medium to advertise non-smoking."[5] For a while Kashyap stated that he was not going to release the film until the Board decided to get rid of the rule, but after several months of negotiations, Kashyap decided that he would release the movie with the "Smoking is Injurious to Health" sign while continuing to challenge the rule.[6] It was released on December 26, 2014.

Reception

The film was premiered at the Cannes film festival and received what Filmfare called a "great response".[7] The film released in France in May 2014 with Business Of Cinema stating that it had a "brilliant script and amazing performance."[8]

On December 23, 2014 a special screening was held in Mumbai. First Post said, "Ironically, Ugly looks beautiful. It's all dark, dank and disgusting, and yet impossible to look away from."[9]

Jogimara calculated score was 71, which means a recommended watch for all. [10]Koimoi gave 4/5 stars praising the direction and scripts.[11] Times of India gave 4/5 stars saying " Anurag Kashyap is in top form in this suspense thriller."[12] Rediff.com gave 4.5/5 star saying it is Kashyap's finest work.[13] Hindustan Times, Glamsham and Deccan Chronicle gave the film 4 to 4.75 stars out of 5.