''Roohi'' is a 2021 Indian
Hindi
Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
-language
comedy horror
Comedy horror, also known as horror comedy, is a literary genre, literary, television genre, television, and film genre that combines elements of comedy and horror fiction. Comedy horror has been described as able to be categorized under three ty ...
film directed by
Hardik Mehta
Hardik Mehta is a writer-director who works in both fiction as well as non fiction formats.
He won the National Award, in addition to several other awards and honors across international film festivals, for his documentary short Amdavad Ma Fa ...
and produced by
Dinesh Vijan
Dinesh Vijan is an Indian film producer and director who works in Hindi films. He is the founder of Maddock Films. He gave up his banking job in 2004 to pursue films. He has produced critically and commercially acclaimed films such as '' Stree' ...
under the banner
Maddock Films
Maddock Films Pvt. Ltd. is an Indian film & web series production company founded by film director and producer Dinesh Vijan. Established in 2005, Maddock Films has produced critically and commercially acclaimed Hindi films such as, '' Love A ...
. The film is the second installment in
Dinesh Vijan's horror-comedy universe, the first being ''
Stree'', and is to be followed by ''
Bhediya
Media is a village development committee in Siraha District in the Sagarmatha Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census
The 1991 Nepal census was a widespread national census conducted by the Nepal Central Bureau of ...
''. It tells the story of a ghost who abducts brides on their honeymoons. The film stars
Rajkummar Rao
Rajkummar Rao (born Raj Kumar Yadav; 31 August 1984) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi films. He has appeared in more than 30 films since 2010, and is the recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, three ...
,
Janhvi Kapoor
Janhvi Kapoor (born 6 March 1997) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. Born to Sridevi and Boney Kapoor, she made her acting debut in 2018 with the romantic drama ''Dhadak'', which was a commercial success. Kapoor went on to receive a ...
and
Varun Sharma
Varun is an Indian male given name. Notable people with the name include:
People
* Varun Aaron (born 1989), Indian cricketer
* Varun Agarwal (born 1987), Indian entrepreneur
* Varun Badola (born 1974), Indian actor
* Varun Singh Bhati (born 1995), ...
. It was announced on 29 March 2019 and filming kicked off on 14 June 2019 in
Agra
Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
. The film was set to release in June 2020, but the
COVID-19 pandemic in India
The COVID-19 pandemic in India is a part of the worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). As of , according to Indian government figures, India has the second-highest n ...
interrupted production. The film was theatrically released in India on 11 March 2021.
The film received negative reviews from the critics for its convoluted plot.
Publications like ''
The Indian Express
''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...
'' named it as one of the worst Hindi films of 2021.
Plot
Bhawra Pandey and Kattanni Qureshi are from a village called Bagadpur, where it is customary for the girl to be kidnapped against her will by the guy who wishes to marry her. They are tasked by their boss and kidnapping-gang leader Guniya Bhai to kidnap Roohi as part of a contract by a guy who wishes to marry her. However, a death in the family of the groom forces them to keep her in hiding in an abandoned woodwork shop so that the marriage can take place after the funeral. During their stay, Bhawra realizes that Roohi is actually possessed by a demonic spirit, which is corroborated by her father. Roohi was actually supposed to be married a year ago, but the groom and his family fled after seeing she was possessed.
Bhawra falls for Roohi and tries to coax the spirit from her body; Kattanni, on the other hand, is smitten by the demonic spirit, who identifies herself as Afza, and tries to bring her forward instead of Roohi so that he can talk to her. They learn that the
demon
A demon is a malevolent supernatural entity. Historically, belief in demons, or stories about demons, occurs in religion, occultism, literature, fiction, mythology, and folklore; as well as in media such as comics, video games, movies, ani ...
is a
Mudiyapairi (a witch with backward-turned feet) and she will not leave unless she gets married along with the girl she is possessing. Guniya Bhai, fearing the police investigation behind Roohi's kidnapping, instructs them to abandon her, but they refuse, forcing him to send his henchmen to get the job done. The henchmen get gravely injured while trying to assault Kattanni by Afza, and report this to Guniya.
Bhawra finds out from an old woman that the 'Mudiyapairi' has to be tricked into marrying a man who is already married, which makes her the mistress and forces her to leave the body she is possessing. The old woman had been possessed before by the same witch, and had exorcised the spirit, but not before the enraged spirit killed her supposed husband. The
henchmen
A henchman (''vernacular:'' "hencher"), is a loyal employee, supporter, or aide to some powerful figure engaged in nefarious or criminal enterprises. Henchmen are typically relatively unimportant in the organization: minions whose value lies prim ...
are attacked by Afza (one is murdered and the other injured), so Bhawra, Roohi, and Kattanni leave for a village called Chimmattipur, where Bhawra marries a dog for him to trick the witch. However, the villagers chastise him for bringing a witch to their sacred village. Guniya Bhai arrives to take revenge but realizes that Afza has to get married in less than a day. Eager to rebuild his reputation, Guniya Bhai tells Afza she can marry the guy who had given the contract to marry Roohi.
Bhawra and Kattanni arrive at the wedding; Kattanni, decked in Bhawra's wedding attire, convinces Afza to marry him. They are interrupted by the old lady, who tells Afza the marriage is a fraud, and deceives her into believing by showing her the video of the dog wedding. She gets confused seeing Bhawra in the groom's attire and mistaking him to be Kattanni. An enraged Afza commands Bhawra to marry him but is stopped by Roohi. Roohi then decides to marry Afza herself, thereby embracing the strength Afza had given her rather than treat her as an enemy.
Roohi and Afza accept each other and leave Bhawra and Kattanni behind. When the police arrive with Roohi's father, they are told by the old woman that Roohi has run away with herself, but the old. woman disappears, indicating that she might have been helping Afza all along as she herself had married “Mudiyapairi” in the past.
Cast
*
Rajkummar Rao
Rajkummar Rao (born Raj Kumar Yadav; 31 August 1984) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi films. He has appeared in more than 30 films since 2010, and is the recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, three ...
as Bhawra Pandey
*
Janhvi Kapoor
Janhvi Kapoor (born 6 March 1997) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. Born to Sridevi and Boney Kapoor, she made her acting debut in 2018 with the romantic drama ''Dhadak'', which was a commercial success. Kapoor went on to receive a ...
as Roohi / Afza
*
Varun Sharma
Varun is an Indian male given name. Notable people with the name include:
People
* Varun Aaron (born 1989), Indian cricketer
* Varun Agarwal (born 1987), Indian entrepreneur
* Varun Badola (born 1974), Indian actor
* Varun Singh Bhati (born 1995), ...
as Kattanni Qureshi
*
Alexx O'Nell
Alexx O'Nell (born Alexander Leonard O'Neill on July 26, 1980) is an American actor and musician who is based in India and has appeared in films, series, and music videos in English and Indian languages. He is best known for ''Golondaaj'', '' Roo ...
as Tim
*
Manav Vij
Manav Vij is an Indian actor working in Hindi and Punjabi language films. He debuted with ''Shaheed-E-Azam'' (2002) as Sukhdev and also featured in the television series ''Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi''. He went on to appear in ''Udta Punja ...
as Guniya Shakeel
*
Sarita Joshi
Sarita Joshi (''née'' Bhosle) is an Indian stage, television and film actress and is a veteran actress of Gujarati theatre and Marathi theatre and also Marathi cinema. In 2020, she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award ...
as Budhiya
* Sumit Gulati as Paras
*
Rajesh Jais
Rajesh Jais (born 6 September 1969) is an Indian film actor, known for first daily soap of india '' Shanti'' (1994), ''Sonu Ke Titu Ki Sweety'' (2018), ''Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'' (2008), ''Rocket Singh'' (2009), ''Airlift'' (2016) and ''Raazi'' ( ...
as Roohi's father
* Gautam Mehra as Lucky Pandit
* Aadesh Bharadwaj as Riaz
* Abhinav Jain as Inspector
Release
The film was initially planned for release on 20 March 2020 but the makers later announced 17 April as new release date. However, it was further pushed to 5 June on 17 February.
On 15 February 2021, the title of the film was changed to ''Roohi'' from ''Roohi Afzana'' and it was released in India on 11 March 2021.
Home media
The film released on
JioCinema
JioCinema is an Indian subscription video on-demand and over-the-top streaming service, owned by Viacom 18, a subsidiary of TV18. Launched on 5 September 2016, JioCinema's content library includes films, television shows, web series, music vi ...
on 8 April and released on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
the next day.
Reception
Critical response
''Roohi'' received generally negative reviews from critics.
On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
it has an approval rating of 10% based on reviews from 10 critics.
''
Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, t ...
'' gave it a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5 and said ,'Roohi'' is an entertaining blend of laughs and thrills". Umesh Punwani of ''
Koimoi
Koimoi is a Bollywood entertainment website providing Bollywood news, box-office reports and film reviews. In January 2021, its Alexa ranking in India was 2530.
Origin
On 23 November 2009, Contest2win.com and Komal Nahta's Faith Entertainment j ...
'' gave the film a rating of 2.5/5 and stated "''Roohi'' has its moments, but they’re very few to label this as an entertaining product overall. The acting department shines, and the others remain to be in between from bad to moderately good". Monika Rawal Kukreja of ''
Hindustan Times
''Hindustan Times'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper based in Delhi. It is the flagship publication of HT Media, an entity controlled by the KK Birla family, and is owned by Shobhana Bhartia.
It was founded by Sunder Singh Lyall ...
'' described ''Roohi'' as a "convoluted film". She praised Rao and Sharma's equation in the movie but criticised Kapoor by calling her performance average.
Saibal Chatterjee
Saibal Chatterjee is an Indian film critic, an author of a book on Gulzar, co-editor of a book on films; and a documentary scriptwriter. He was a columnist at BBC News, Business Standard, Hindustan Times and Financial Express. And a staff writer of ...
of ''
NDTV
New Delhi Television Ltd is an Indian news media company focusing on broadcast and digital news publication. The company is considered to be a legacy brand that pioneered independent news broadcasting in India, and is credited for launching t ...
'' gave the film a rating of 2/5 and stated that the film "seeks to subvert genre conventions and venture into the terrain of feminist rebellion". Nandini Ramnath of ''
Scroll
A scroll (from the Old French ''escroe'' or ''escroue''), also known as a roll, is a roll of papyrus, parchment, or paper containing writing.
Structure
A scroll is usually partitioned into pages, which are sometimes separate sheets of papyrus ...
'' stated that "''Roohi'' is a Horror-comedy movie which has some spirit but no soul". Rohit Vats of ''
CNN-IBN
CNN-News18 (originally CNN-IBN) is an Indian English-language news television channel founded by Raghav Bahl based in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is currently co-owned by Network18 Group and Warner Bros. Discovery. CNN provides internationa ...
'' wrote, "Written by Mrighdeep Singh Lamba and Gautam Mehra, ''Roohi'' is totally about spontaneity and a solid beginning; Though both Rao and Sharma are in their favourite zone, but their back and forth and punchlines evoke laughs".
Shubhra Gupta
Shubhra Gupta is an Indian film critic, writer and columnist for ''The Indian Express'' from New Delhi, India. She received the Ramnath Goenka Award for Best Writing on Cinema in 2012. She was a member of the Central Board of Film Certificati ...
of ''
The Indian Express
''The Indian Express'' is an English-language Indian daily newspaper founded in 1932. It is published in Mumbai by the Indian Express Group. In 1999, eight years after the group's founder Ramnath Goenka's death in 1991, the group was split betw ...
'' gave ''Roohi'' a rating of 1/5 and called it a "plain horrible" movie. She further stated, "''Roohi'' is missing a coherent plot and writing. All we get is one cringe-inducing sequence after the next". Trade Analyst
Taran Adarsh
Taran Adarsh (born 13 June 1965) is an Indian film critic and trade analyst. He is best known for giving trade figures and box office updates on social media.
Career
Taran Adarsh started his journalism career at the age of 15 with ''Trade Gui ...
rated the film 2/5 and called it 'Disappointing'. further he said "Nowhere close to ''
Stree'', Weak screenwriting, Works in bits and spurts, not in entirety, Second half + climax lacks impact. But he praised Performances of lead cast.
Anupama Chopra
Anupama Chopra () is an Indian author, journalist, film critic and director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. She is also the founder and editor of the digital platform Film Companion, which offers a curated look at cinema. She has written sev ...
of ''
Film Companion
Anupama Chopra () is an Indian author, journalist, film critic and director of the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. She is also the founder and editor of the digital platform Film Companion, which offers a curated look at cinema. She has written sev ...
'' wrote, "The film wants to juggle many balls – horror, comedy, feminist messaging, a love triangle, a bromance – but ends up dropping almost all of them".
Anna M. M. Vetticad
Anna Mercy Mathews Vetticad, commonly known as Anna M. M. Vetticad, is an Indian film critic and journalist. She has been in the field of journalism since 1994. Vetticad has also hosted her own interview show, ''Star Trek'', on Headlines Today ...
of ''
Firstpost
''Firstpost'' is an Indian online news and media website. The site is a part of the Network 18 media conglomerate owned by Reliance Industries, which also runs CNN-News18 and CNBC-TV18.
The ''Network 18'' group was originally owned by Raghav ...
'' gave the film a rating of 1.5/5 and wrote, "''Roohi'' is horror comedy that’s dead on arrival despite sporadic humour, feminist aspirations". She praised Rao and Sharma for their comic timing but criticised the writers, the overall plot of the film and Kapoor's performance by stating, "They could have cast any other actor in her place and it would not have made an inch of a difference to the film." she further stated, "Nothing better indicates ''Roohi’s'' lack of commitment to its feminist goals than the irrelevance of its female star".
Namrata Joshi
Namrata Joshi is an Indian film critic based in New Delhi. Originally working for ''Outlook'', she remained there from 1999 till 2015, when she joined ''The Hindu''. She won the National Film Award for Best Film Critic in 2004
Career
Joshi is ...
of ''
The National Herald (India)'' compared ''Roohi'' with ''
Stree'' and stated, "While Stree, despite the fluff and inconsistencies, was eminently watchable, ''Roohi'' is unbearable to the core. There are absolutely no jump-from-the-seat moments, no chills-down-the-spine eeriness to justify the “horror” side of it. As far as comedy is concerned, there are barely any worthy gags and irreverent lines, only lame slapstick and jokes that fall flat". Roktim Rajpal from the ''
Deccan Herald
''Deccan Herald'' is an Indian English language daily newspaper published from the Indian state of Karnataka. It was founded by K. N. Guruswamy, a liquor businessman from Ballari and was launched on 17 June 1948. It is published by The Printe ...
'' called ''Roohi'' a "Big Disappointment". He praised Rao and Sharma's performance but criticised Kapoor and stated that Kapoor failed to make an impact. Sushri Sahu of ''
Mashable India'' praised Rao and Sharma but criticised Kapoor and the direction of the movie by stating, "Kapoor is simply unwatchable with a flat performance without any sound direction by Hardik Mehta."
Soundtrack
The film's music was composed by
Sachin–Jigar
Sachin–Jigar is an Indian music composer duo consisting of Sachin Sanghvi and Jigar Saraiya. They compose for Hindi and Gujarati language films. They have scored a number of successful soundtracks in recent times. Before working independently ...
while lyrics written by
Amitabh Bhattacharya
Amitabh Bhattacharya (born 16 November 1976) is an Indian lyricist and playback singer who works in Bollywood films. He shot to fame with the film ''Dev.D'' with the song "Emotional Atyachar" turning an instant hit. He sang this song under the ...
, IP Singh and Jigar Saraiya.
The third song ''Nadiyon Paar (Let the Music Play Again)'' is remake version of the famous 2004
Shamur party song ''Let The Music Play''.
Box office
''Roohi'' earned 3.06 crore at the domestic box office on its opening day. On the second day, the collection declined to 2.25 crore. Picking up, it collected 3.42 crore on the third day and 3.85 crore on the fourth day. The total opening weekend collection of the film stood at 12.58 crore.
, with a gross of 27.68 crore in India and 2.65 crore overseas, the film has a worldwide gross collection of 30.33 crore.
Sequel
The film wil be followed by the film ''
Bhediya
Media is a village development committee in Siraha District in the Sagarmatha Zone of south-eastern Nepal. At the time of the 1991 Nepal census
The 1991 Nepal census was a widespread national census conducted by the Nepal Central Bureau of ...
'' in which
Janhvi Kapoor
Janhvi Kapoor (born 6 March 1997) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films. Born to Sridevi and Boney Kapoor, she made her acting debut in 2018 with the romantic drama ''Dhadak'', which was a commercial success. Kapoor went on to receive a ...
will be reprising her role as Roohi. The film will also have a direct sequel with
Rajkumar Rao
Rajkummar Rao (born Raj Kumar Yadav; 31 August 1984) is an Indian actor known for his work in Hindi films. He has appeared in more than 30 films since 2010, and is the recipient of several accolades including a National Film Award, three ...
,
Varun Sharma
Varun is an Indian male given name. Notable people with the name include:
People
* Varun Aaron (born 1989), Indian cricketer
* Varun Agarwal (born 1987), Indian entrepreneur
* Varun Badola (born 1974), Indian actor
* Varun Singh Bhati (born 1995), ...
and Janhvi expected to return along with other characters from the
franchise
Franchise may refer to:
Business and law
* Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees
* Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
.
References
External links
*
* {{Bollywood Hungama movie, roohi-2, Roohi
See also
*
Dinesh Vijan's horror-comedy universe
2021 films
2020s Hindi-language films
2021 comedy horror films
Indian comedy horror films
Films postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic