Not a Love Story is a crime-thriller film which seems to be inspired by the gruesome murder of Neeraj Grover in 2008 that led to the arrest of Emile Jerome and Maria Susairaj. Not a Love Story movie review…
A beautiful, young girl from a middle class family, Anusha Chawla (Mahie Gill) moves into suburban Mumbai from Chandigarh. She is aspiring to make it big in hindi films, in this city of dreams. Very soon, she realizes that it is an uphill task to achieve the goal she has set for herself.
She manages to get accommodation in a northern suburb of Mumbai. And she finds out that it is not easy to get a break in bollywood, some film makers tell her that “before making a movie, it’s important for a director to get into a ‘comfort zone’ with his actors.”
Anusha is all alone in the mega city. Back home in Punjab her impatient boyfriend Robin Fernandes (Deepak Dobriyal) gets worried about his girl. Anusha then meets a film production executive Ashish Bhatnagar (Ajay Gehi) , who puts her on a short-list, eventually gets approval, and signs her in a lead role. She finally manages to get an important role in a bollywood film.
Both celebrate in a pub, get intoxicated and end up in bed in her flat.
Here, Robin, her boyfriend, arrives in Mumbai and decides to give a surprise visit to her.
Rather, he gets a surprise and finds a stark-naked man in her flat. It is this production executive of the upcoming film who incidentally also landed her that film role.
In a spate of anger, the boyfriend first kills that man in the apartment; then hacks his body into pieces, to dump and burn them off.
A sharp, mild-mannered cop Zakir Hussain pulls up Maria for questioning and eventually she breaks down.
Anusha and Robin are suddenly dragged to law court.
A very important point conveyed is that a human mind is capable of doing anything in those sudden and unexpected but strong moments of anger and lust.
The director of Not a Love Story effectively depicts the value of those few moments full of anger, which become responsible for a serious crime committed without any prior motive. He further uncovers the ugly face of our society where sex clearly remains the biggest currency which can be used to get anything in the world under the sky.
Finally the lawyers profession is exposed to show the unbelievable how they mould facts and evidences stepping over the souls and emotions of their own clients – just to win the case.
Ram Gopal Varma does manage to hold your attention in Not a Love Story and the backdrop of the story is the reference to Rangeela (Urmilla Matondkar and Aamir Khan) which was directed by him.
Cast of Not a Love Story:
Deepak Dobriyal – Robin Fernandes
Ajay Gehi – Ashish Bhatnagar
Mahie Gill – Anusha Chawla
Zakir Hussain – Inspector Mane
Darshan Jariwala – Anusha’s Lawyer
Rasika Joshi – Savitri Bhatnagar
Urmila Matondkar – Singer / Dancer
Ganesh Yadav – Robin’s Lawyer
Credits & Crew of Not a Love Story:
Produced by – Sunil Bohra, Kiran Kumar Koneru,
Direction – Ram Gopal Varma
Screenplay & Dialogues – Rohit C. Banawlikar
Executive Producer – Vijay Vinayak Joshi
Original Music – Sandeep Chowta
Cinematography – Sapan Narula
Co-cinematographer – Zaryan Patel, Harshraj Shroff
Film Editing by Vinay Chauhan, Abhijeet Kokate, Jimmy Thomas
Costume Design – Subarna Rai Chaudhuri
Sound Design – Leslie Fernandes, Dwarak Warrier
Not a Love Story – movie review