Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba Review: Taapsee Pannu and Vikrant Massey’s Netflix Original Is Totally Disappointing

Three years ago when I watched Netflix’s Haseen Dillruba, despite not being a fan of romantic crime thrillers, I was incredibly invested. The film was well written, thoughtful, layered, and very entertaining. So, naturally, when the sequel was announced, I was ready with my tub of popcorn, can of soda, and high hopes. To say that Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba is disappointed, would be an understatement. Jayprad Desai’s sequel feels like a clumsy attempt to cash in on the original’s success, with no care or thought given to the new story. While Desai is trying to recreate the experience of the first film, he seems to be ignoring the things that made Haseen Dillruba work.

When we were last in the world of Dillruba, Vikrant Massey’s Rishabh had cut off his hand and arranged his death to save his unfaithful wife Rani (Taapsee Pannu) from going to jail for killing her ex-lover. This dramatic ending provided the perfect foundation for the director to build on to something more important in the sequel. Instead, Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba suffers from painful pacing, stretched screenplay, frustrated dialogue, an absurd plot, and no real hook to keep you hooked on its story.

Jimmy Shergill has a recurring role in the film

The film opens in Agra, where Rani lives as a part-time makeup artist, while Rishabh is in hiding, trying his best to make arrangements for the couple to move abroad and start over. Since the Uttar Pradesh police somehow closed the case, these poisonous love birds cannot be seen together. Now they look at each other with blue eyes like forbidden high school sweethearts across the street, talk on the phone for hours, and meet in secret.

And oh, as always, they speak well of Dinesh Pandit – a crime novelist whose works gave them a good show for the last time. You will see a crazy couple who draw quotes from their books on walls or even garbage vans to send messages to each other. Okay, admittedly, no matter how painful the rest of the movie is, this exchange of winners is amazing. It may not have a useful aspect, but the almost Sherlockian mentality is consistent with the kind of madness that took our characters towards the end of the first film.

Kashyap is now in Agra, planning to start a new life abroad as soon as possible

We also have a new protagonist now: Abhimanyu, a medical technician who is smitten by Rani – reminiscent of Rishabh’s pre-crisis phase. He lives in hopes of wooing a widow, unaware of her criminally insane and high-living dead husband and their disturbing history. While Sunny Kaushal is good in certain scenes that manage to convey the horror of the situation – especially in his first scene with Massey on the carnival trip – the character feels underwritten.

The rest of the main cast, including leads Pannu and Massey, and Jimmy Shergill’s Monty, met similar fates. Unlike the first film, the depressing script leaves little room for the characters to shine and reveal the dark side of their psyche. To see so many talented actors being criminally underutilized is inexcusable.

There is a scene where Shergill, who plays a police officer and the victim’s uncle in the film, tells his superior officer that “this case is like constipation.” Umm… taking creative liberties and having a theatrical conversation is fine, but this was out of place, Jimmy. His presence is occasionally marred by overacting and he fails to convey the pain of someone who has just lost his nephew with blood in his eyes.

Taapsee Pannu’s Rani Kashyap once again finds herself on the police radar in this sequel.

The film also suffers from lack of logic. A lot of things happen just because the filmmaker wants them to happen that way. While some absurd plot points can be put down to luck and coincidence, the film’s story stretches its reliance on comfort and verges on disbelief. The characters meet and marry in a three-day period; people have a good time boating on a river full of crocodiles; jumping off cliffs doesn’t cause much more than scratches; and people bump into each other in a mysterious way! Even if the creators wanted to give the story the vibe of a gossip magazine column, a little sobriety would have done the trick.

That said, the film thankfully did a good job with visual metaphors. Throughout the film, we get many wise and poetic expressions. Rani’s handmade phone stand was the cutest. The film’s inclusion of “Ek Haseena Thi” from Rishi Kapoor’s Karz (1980) makes another interesting choice. The song itself is a tale of female betrayal and adds just the right note needed to keep things rolling. Sadly, Kapoor’s medley cannot carry the burden of the film alone.

Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba does not have the context of the original film

Phir Aayi Hasseen Dillruba fails to create the kind of curiosity that fuels that entertainment. Even shocking revelations won’t take you by surprise. The storyline falls flat and nothing exciting. Given that the characters were almost in doubt by the end of the first film, more depth was needed to keep the momentum going. The film doesn’t move much in that area, it delivers superficial events. Although the characters scream, shout, cry and do their best to express their helplessness, the film fails to empathize, unlike the first film.

The only incentive to continue watching this two-hour disappointment is the faint hope that the original film’s brilliance will resurface. And, of course, but only occasionally and at passing times. For fans like me, these short lyrics are cruelly funny, hinting at what could have been if the sequel lived up to its predecessor. If you’re new to Rani and Rishu’s twisted romance, you might be able to look past its flaws. But if you’re familiar with the original film, the disappointment may be too much to bear.

Rating: 6/10