7 Khoon Maaf

The Story:
Susanna (Priyanka Chopra) is a young rich orphan who falls in lowe with the dashing Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nithin Mukesh). She marries him only to learn that he is not quite what she believed him to be. A brave fighter during war-time, he is quite insecure in his personal life. His suspicious attitude, hurtful comments, and jealous actions hurt susanna a lot. Susanna, instead of divorcing him or running away, kills him. She meets and marries Jimmy (John Abraham), a choirboy turned rockstar. Just wen she is settling into wedded bliss, she learns that he is a liar, a cheat, and an addict to boot. So Susanne, sends Jimmy to parlok as well.

And subsequently she meets 4 other men: Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan), Vronsky (Aleksandra Dyachenk), Keemath Lal (Annu Kapoor), and Dr. Modhusudon (Naseeruddin Shah) and while all of them love her in their own way, they also hurt her very badly and so they have to die too. Susanne's quest for love ends when she meets her 7th husband. As Susanna moves from one husband to the next, she is ably assisted in her murders by her butler, maid, and the horse trainer, Goonga. Arun, the orphan she adopts, falls in love with her and the whole story is shown from his perspective and what he has pieced together. Based on Ruskin Bond's short story, Susanna's Seven Husbands.

Image Courtesy: http://bollywood3000.blogspot.com/2011/02/7-khoon-maaf-music-review.html

What I liked about the movie:

• The concept of the female bluebeard character. Priyanka does a good job.
• Fleshing out the characters of the husband(s) to show us the qualities that Priyanka falls for and the ones that she abhors
• Transformation of Irrfan from the soft-spoken, romantic, poet by day to the beast by night.
• Vronsky's mouthing hindi dialogues especially "Mera pass Ma hai" in a thick russian accent.
• The song "Daarrrling" was simply fantastic.

Why some folks may not like the movie:

• No suspense element -- the trailer gives away the plot. Some folks believed the movie to be a murder mysetery.
• Linear style of narration and pace -- no twists
• Why did Priyanka never not stop falling in love or stop murdering her husbands?

You can either like it or you can hate it -- there is no middle ground. There are no punch dialogues, no mushy stuff, no masala potboiler, no detective story, and no twists. This was my first Vishal Bharadwaj movie and I enjoyed it. Watch it and let me know what you think.