Daayra Review: The Shades of Truth

The law must do its duty. But what happens when the law takes its time, as it is wont to? In Meghna Gulzar’s latest film, Daayra, based on the 2019 rape and murder of a young veterinarian in Hyderabad, DCP Raman Kumar, played by Prithviraj Sukumaran, wonders how far one can turn a blind eye to the endemic delays in the justice system. His solution: deliver quick justice to the victim’s family through a staged encounter with the four rapists, including a juvenile who will “get away”. The arguments are not new, but Gulzar tells the tale like a procedural and leaves the recreation of the crime for the very end. Prithviraj, as a man who keeps a tight leash on his anger, communicates his emotions with minimal ease: the flicker of an eye, the curl of a lip in disgust, and even the intake of a breath.

DCP Ajooni Kohli (Kareena Kapoor Khan) is the officer investigating the encounter, calm yet compelling. Much as in Talvar, Gulzar's 2015 film based on the Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj double murder, Gulzar doesn’t take sides but presents two versions of the incident and asks the audience to choose. Or even to sit on the fence. It asks us to get down into the mud and slush of what turns men feral.