If there is one title that justifies the price of Netflix’s monthly subscription fee — and that too their premium one — it would be Suspect X or Jaan-i-Jaan (take your pick), an anxiety-inducing thriller expertly directed by Sujoy Ghosh (Kahaani) based on Keigo Higashino’s novel The Devotion of Suspect X.

Higashino’s novel, the third in his Detective Galileo series, has been adapted into a Japanese, Chinese, South Korean and a Tamil feature film — and it has inspired the original Malayalam version of the movie Drishyam — so, yes, it is popular literature.

Ghosh’s version of the tale is thick with feeling and atmosphere. The small, fog-covered, barely sun-kissed town of Kalimpong in West Bengal has an unusual resident: the maths teacher Naren Vyas (Jaideep Ahlawat) — a lonesome and secretive man of principle, who walks around with a strict posture and a bleeding heart for his next-door neighbour, Maya D’Souza (Kareena Kapoor), a ‘hot’ single mother who runs a restaurant that he frequents like the rising sun, according to the eatery’s staff.

Naren is a nice, quiet man. He plays a game of grab-the-penny with his student on his way from work — Naren wins everyday by flipping his hand with lighting fast speed, snatching the penny from his student’s fist — and late in the evening he runs a dojo (a hall where martial arts are practised) that honours Bruce Lee’s fighting discipline Jeet Kune Do.

Everything in the thriller Jaan-i-Jaan is designed and executed by director Sujoy Ghosh with great finesse, though a less explanatory narrative might have elevated the film to near-perfect

At night, Naren romances his first love: maths — his apartment is stacked, though not littered, with books, folders and blackboards that have chalk-scribbled maths equations.

His love, though, is cruel. Naren finds out that someone has beaten him to the punch in cracking an unsolvable maths problem that he mulled over for 10 years.

Shattered, Naren shifts his focus on Maya, and the case of her abusive husband — a bad cop who has tracked her to this town after she disappeared. Maya was a former pole dancer from Mumbai who fled with a lot of loot, and the husband — surprise, surprise — wants it back.

Ghosh, who also pens the screenplay, is a smart man. His film is taut, unforgiving, impeccable and very well cast.

Ahlawat, always a fine actor, embeds himself into Naren. The nuance, the posture, the timing, the reactions — this is, by far, one of the great Bollywood performances.

Ahlawat gets an equally strong co-actor with Vijay Verma, who plays Naren’s childhood buddy-turned-super-cop investigating Maya’s husband’s disappearance from Mumbai (in case you were wondering: Kapoor is just a notch above okay in the acting department).

Ghosh is not a subtle filmmaker, nor is he an unkind one. His own idiosyncratic trait is perhaps best reflected in Naren’s multi-shaded character that shows his kinks, quirks and unsympathetic predispositions (I won’t say anything else, nor ponder on Naren, for it gives away the film).

Notwithstanding the intriguing, gripping, hard-handed take on scenes — everything is designed and executed with utmost perfection — Ghosh keeps ambiguity away from the story.

The excessive explanations, where he explains every small aspect, helps those who need absolute closure after the screenplay’s severe emotional climb in the final act — though, it could have just as easily been left up to the audience to decipher and ponder.

This is not a gripe though; call it a ponderance that may have elevated this super film to a superior status. g

Streaming now on Netflix,
Jaan-i-Jaan reigns at the top spot. The film is rated suitable for ages 16 and over, and has scenes of violence, suicide, domestic abuse and death.

Published in Dawn, ICON, October 1st, 2023