Brilliantly written and directed,
Ugly is one of Anurag Kashyap’s finest films.
Kali, a little girl goes missing
when her father, Rahul, a struggling actor,
leaves her in the car to meet his casting director.
The police officer Shoumik Bose,
who turns out to be the Kali's stepfather,
blames Rahul for the girl’s disappearance,
while Rahul, after a while is convinced
that it is Shoumik who would have done this
to keep him away from meeting his daughter.
The film essentially follows the course of this investigation.
What happened to Kali?
Who is the one who kidnapped her?
A simple case of a girl gone missing
takes us through a dark, complex world
of self-centered, egoistic characters.
One notable feature of Kashyap’s writing and direction in this film
is his clever placement of dark humor, from time to time.
When Rahul and his friend Chaitanya go to the police station
to file a missing report,
the inspector Jadhav does not take the matter seriously.
Instead of springing into action,
he frustratingly questions them about trivial, insignificant matters—
screen names,
the details of their work,
caller pictures on phones among other things.
Here, the editor Aarti Bajaj
does really well to not chop this long 7-minute scene,
as there might have been a temptation to cut it down
in the name of building tension.
Here are some other darkly comic moments-
Through such moments,
the audience gets a small respite and a breathing space
from this dark, unpleasant setting
and from the frustrating choices these characters make,
completely negligent of the fact that a girl has disappeared.
Alright!
Let's delve into some themes that the film looks to explore.
During their college days,
Rahul and Soumik liked the same girl Shalini.
In a flashback,
we see Rahul bullying and assaulting Shoumik
when the latter gets a card for the girl.
Shalini marries Rahul but over time,
their relationship begins to fizzle out—
Rahul in the hopes of making it big as an actor
turns into an alcoholic abuser
and does not care for his wife and his daughter.
Shalini goes to the police to complain about Rahul’s behaviour
and lo and behold,
the officer turns out to be Shoumik!
After the divorce, Shoumik and Shalini get married.
However, for Shoumik
the basis of this marriage is not love;
instead, he wants to teach Shalini a lesson—
how bad her decision was
to choose Rahul over him
and in a way,
take some sort of revenge
for those miserable college days
wherein the two used to make fun of him.
When Kali goes missing,
Shoumik finds a reason to pounce on Rahul,
blaming him for the act.
He assaults Rahul and his friend,
venting out his anger and envy
that had remained suppressed deep inside him for all these years.
Rahul, on the other hand,
believes Soumik hid the girl
to prevent her from meeting him.
He comes to the conclusion
that Soumik is trying to frame him
after he produces a recording in which
an angry Rahul, in a heated argument,
is heard saying to Shalini that he shall take the girl away.
Hence, in a way, Rahul becomes carefree.
Multiple times in the film,
he gives a visit to Shalini’s friend Rakhee;
it's crystal clear that they have an affair.
Towards the end of the film,
Rahul gives a call to Soumik
and in a taunting voice states
that the police force under a so-called ‘super cop’
could not track him
after he managed to escape with the ransom money.
He soon realizes though that
in their blame game and ugly rivalry,
a direct result of toxic masculinity,
it was the girl who got left behind.
Shalini eloped with Rahul
leaving a comfortable life at her parents’ house.
However, Rahul
who is struggling to get a break in films,
is not able to provide her and Kali a good life.
She is constantly unhappy.
Even after separating from Rahul and marrying Shoumik,
things don’t change.
The two don’t spend time together;
they even sleep in different rooms.
Shalini is treated more or less like a prisoner.
She can’t go out, do things without permission.
In fact, to keep an eye on her,
Shoumik even taps her phone calls.
When Shalini gets a call for a 50-lakh ransom amount
to save her daughter,
she quotes 65 lakhs to her father
in order to keep 15 off it for herself.
Even in this tense, nasty situation,
she has the time to think for her own interests
and her dedication for Kali takes a backseat.
Kali never got attention and commitment
before she got kidnapped as well.
She used to watch her parents fight like animals most of the time.
From the short film, Kali-Katha,
a prologue to Ugly,
it is conveyed that Shalini never wanted a child
and since Rahul was more focused on his professional life,
raising Kali single-handedly
would soon become a liability.
Deprived of love herself,
Shalini was looking at other options.
After her parents’ separation,
which would have been absolutely heartbreaking for the little girl,
Shoumik, the step-father enters.
He too isn’t kind towards her
as gathered from the flashback
where he is seen ripping her father’s pictures from the house
while the girl pleads.
Rahul’s friend and casting director Chaitanya,
plans to take advantage of the situation
and makes calls for ransom money.
When the police catch him,
he repeatedly denies the accusation
and when Rahul steps in,
he shuts him down with an angry-emotional speech
wherein he states that he has always been a loyal friend,
helping him financially and professionally,
except, he forgot to mention
that he had once
slept with his dear friend’s wife!
Shalini's brother Siddhant,
a local phone smuggler,
is another one to exploit Kali’s disappearance.
He anonymously calls his sister
stating that Kali is with him
and demands a heavy 50-lakh ransom
before the police track him down
and he is caught red-handed.
Shalini’s dear friend Rakhee
is not innocent either.
She is not loyal to her husband
and has an affair with her friend’s ex-husband Rahul,
which she never discloses to Shalini.
Moreover, she partners Chaitanya
in his plan to extort money
and when he gets caught,
she anonymously phones Rahul and using the same recorder,
orders him to deliver the amount the next day.
In the end, Rakhee runs away with all the money,
65 lakhs in total—
50 from what was supposed to be shared by her, Rahul, and Chaitanya,
plus those 15 lakhs
that Shalini had trusted her to keep.
The film brings to light the ugliest of human nature—
rivalry, greed, envy, and lust;
how pointless and harmful these can be
in the larger scheme of things.
No one takes the accountability of finding Kali.
No one follows the most obvious lead—
the mask-seller who got killed in the chase.
If only the two men, claiming to be the guardians of the girl,
had kept aside their egos,
if only the other characters had abandoned their little personal interests
and been sensible enough,
if only the police force
had not been influenced and investigated more objectively,
the girl could have been tracked much earlier
and the ending would be different.