Like Hum Kaun Hai?, Anjaane (2006) lifts its plot from the Hollywood movie The Others. In my review of HKH, I was very careful to avoid spoiling the movie. That is not the case here; if I didn’t know Anjaane’s big twist before watching I never would have figured out what was going on.
Shivani (Manisha Koirala) lives in a big creepy house with her annoying children, Tanwi (Tanvi Gauri Mehta) and Mannu (Akshay Bhatiya). It’s clear that Shivani parted from her husband Aditya (Sanjay Kapoor) on bad terms; we first see him standing at the gate to the house, spattered in blood, shouting that he’s come to take the kids, while she threatens to kill the children and herself before they let that happen.
While the family seems to be getting on well without any servants, Shivani hires a trio of strangers who show up at the door looking for work. “Auntie” (Helen), the new housekeeper, is nice enough, and Baba (Mushtaq Khan) is gruff but essentially harmless. Nandu (Atul Parchure), on the other hand, is consistently described as “pagal”. Crazy. In this case, crazy seems to mean “We didn’t have enough money to hire Johny Lever”; Nandu spends most of his time doing the typical annoying Bollywood comic relief schtick, though occasionally he’ll put on a wedding dress and frighten Shivani and the kids.
And it’s at about this point that confusion sets in. Unlike many Bollywood horror movies, Anjaane includes songs. I am normally a big fan of gratuitous dance numbers, but Anjaane’s songs are inserted into the narrative with no relation to what’s going on in the movie at the time. For example, while giving Auntie a tour of the house Shivani explains that the kids must stay inside at all times, and that they are deathly afraid of sunlight. This would be fine except that we just saw the children singing and dancing in the bright sunlight at McDonald’s.
Nandu isn’t the only Nandu in the house. Tanwi delights in scaring her brother by telling him about the other Nandu, a boy who lives in the house with his parents, and whom only she can see. The film makes many jokes about confusion between the two Nandus. None of the jokes are funny.
In between spooky happenings, lame jokes, and random songs, we’re given bits and pieces of backstory. It turns out that Aditya was having an affair with Sonia (Tejaswini Kolhapure). Shivani is the kind of Bollywood housewife who doesn’t take that kind of crap from anyone, so she smashes the windshield of the car they’re making out in, confronts Aditya, and when Sonia tries to butt in, she slaps her.
Aditya has to make a choice, and because he is an idiot (and has never seen Biwi Number One) he chooses the floozie, and stays with her even when it becomes clear that Sonia is an evil controlling cow. She’s also infertile, so Aditya dutifully goes to court to seek custody of the children. Shivani misses a court date, so the judge promptly awards custody to Aditya and Sonia.
Sonia doesn’t really care about the kids; she hopes to gain her revenge on Shivanui by taking her children away and giving them a life of misery. (Her revenge on Shivani for slapping her. Once. After being caught with her husband . . . I don’t like Sonia.) She announces her nefarious plans while meeting with her mother, Shivani’s new housekeeper. Though I have yet to figure out exactly why, Auntie has infiltrated Shivani’s house on Sonia’s orders, and that’s where the movie gets really confusing. (And I will be spoiling the film pretty heavily from here on in, so if you really want to be surprised, stop reading now and I’ll see you next week.)
The problem is that Shivani and her children are dead. She gave them poisoned milk after losing custody. Auntie and the other servants are also dead; Shivani stumbles across a newspaper article about the three of them, along with Aditya and Sonia, dying in a car crash. Auntie drops a few hints that, unlike Shivani and the kids, she knows she’s a ghost. So why is she there? The children are dead, so how is she going to take them away? Did Sonia come up with this plan before or after dying, and before or after Shivani died? Why is Nandu wearing a wedding dress?
My head hurts.
Anjaane tries to mix supernatural suspense and family drama. Bollywood movies pull off this kind of balancing act all the time, but in Anjaane the two genres never quite mesh. Unless you’re a really dedicated Manisha fan, you’re better off watching Hum Kaun Hai?.
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