Some stories sink in with an organic sense of lethargy. You can soak in their flavours like a soothing cup of coffee, derive a feeling that is as comforting as a stroll in the park or a restful afternoon on a hammock. On paper, Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan belongs to that zone. The story flows like a placid water body, minus any tumultuous twists or massive jolts.
Three principal characters embark on a road trip from Bengaluru to Kochi via Ooty for an unusual exchange: a pair of misplaced coffins. No, the deaths aren’t lamented beyond a point in the film, which also becomes a slight hiccup along the way. Instead, the film is primarily about a young man’s coming-of-age and how diverse individuals cope with tragedy.
Avinash Rajpurohit (a pitch-perfect Dulquer Salmaan) is a techie based in Bengaluru, and the film opens by establishing the tasteless life he leads. In a scenario that is atypical, Avinash bears the burden of a soul-crushing job and the regret of not having pursued his passion for photography.
We also discover the strained relationship he shares with his somewhat estranged father. Soon comes the news of the latter’s death, and we do not witness massive breakdowns or sentimental trips down memory lane.
What follows is the process of retrieving the dead body, which incorporates a neat dose of wry, cynical humour rarely seen in mainstream Hindi cinema. Avinash, with the help of his friend Shaukat (Irrfan), navigates the pandemonium before the duo set out to retrieve the coffin that has mistakenly been sent to Kochi.
With the languid tenor that the screenplay adopts, Karwaan demanded a tad more dynamism in the way its sequences were visualized and executed. Lacking precisely that quality, Khurana’s direction often drifts into a passive zone, only to be rescued by some lovely metaphors embedded in the screenplay. The understated visual treatment is further elevated by Avinash Arun’s cinematography, which not only captures the panoramic beauty of the journey but also pays attention to the minutest details of the production design.
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The film favours the right mix of close-ups, mid-shots and wide frames, allowing the camera to linger just long enough for every expression to register. Adding further to Karwaan‘s laid-back beauty is a lilting original score by Prateek Kuhad, Anurag Saikia, SlowCheeta and Imaad Shah, which blends seamlessly with the film’s mood.
For a film that is technically accomplished, Karwaan notably flounders on certain aspects of the screenplay. The film consistently carries an air of manufactured exotica. Be it the people it introduces us to or the locales it captures, there is a surreal, impractically urban quality to the narrative. At several points, one wonders if the characters ever cared about the purpose of their journey, with the coffin lying listlessly inside an abandoned van. This emotional detachment would have worked entirely in the film’s favour had Karwaan embraced the identity of a pacy, unemotional black comedy with edgier characters.
We also see a gang of goons pursuing Shaukat over money he owes them, a subplot that seems to belong to an altogether different film. Likewise, the casualness with which a close-knit family (Amala Akkineni and Mithila Palkar) deals with the death of its matriarch feels unsettling, especially given the emotional register the film otherwise strives for. It also doesn’t help that Khurana’s visual staging and editing remain unassertive, failing to rise above the screenplay’s more glaring irregularities.
Predictably enough, it is Irrfan’s crackling humour that holds the film together. Even in the least convincing of sequences, the actor’s effortless goofiness wins you over. Mithila Palkar, on the other hand, makes little impact as the sexually liberated young adult who occasionally schools our leading man on life goals. It becomes further irksome when she repeatedly speaks of her progressive grandmother while we hardly see her pay any heed to the woman’s decomposing body. Amala, Kriti Kharbanda and the peripheral characters remain breezy additions to the film’s needlessly exoticized atmosphere.
Karwaan, at the end of the day, makes for an easy watch. At the same time, it never fully succeeds as a coming-of-age drama. It works better as a chronicle of dissimilar lives and their experiences in similar situations. Stories like these ideally resonate more when they delve deeper into their characters’ psyche, something Karwaan only does sporadically. Oh yes, the one-liners didn’t hurt at all.
Rating: ★★★
Karwaan is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
