Andhadhun

Sriram Raghavan's Andhadhun is the kind of film that makes you grateful Indian cinema has a commercial industry that occasionally takes wild risks. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Akash, a pianist who pretends to be blind (he claims it enhances his musical focus) — until he "witnesses" a murder and discovers that pretending not to see is very different from actually not being able to see.

What follows is a spiral of blackmail, more murders, organ harvesting, and a rabbit that may or may not be significant. Tabu, playing the murderous wife, delivers a performance of such controlled malice that she single-handedly shifts the film's center of gravity every time she appears on screen. She is terrifying and, somehow, sympathetic — a woman who has been underestimated her entire life and has decided to make that everyone else's problem.

The film's notorious ending — in which Akash tells his story to an ex-girlfriend and we realize we cannot trust a single thing we have seen — replays the entire narrative in a split-second flash. Is the whole film a lie? That question is more interesting than any answer. Andhadhun made over ₹450 crore worldwide on a ₹32 crore budget. It proves that Indian audiences are hungry for films that treat them as smart.