A slow moral sulk

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Raj Kumar Gupta’s No One Killed Jessica arrived at our theatres yesterday, all earnest and purposeful. It is here to tell us an important modern tale of Delhi and its horrifying ways. And to this end the film gets it right: In 1999, at a socialite’s illegal party joint in Mehrauli, a model is shot dead by the son of a powerful Congress minister for refusing to serve him a drink. The eyewitnesses, the swish crowd of Delhi, dancing and drinking at the party, develop speech or memory disorders in court, and all the accused are acquitted in 2006. Media’s sting operations follow, ignite public outrage and, finally, the case is reopened and it is life imprisonment for the murderer.
For delicate legal and political reasons, Gupta has changed certain names (Shayan Munshi becomes Vikram Jai Singh, Bina Ramani becomes Mallika Sehgal, Manu Sharma becomes Manish Bharadwaj...), but the film is factually correct, and holds promise given the talent of its two leading ladies. Yet, No One Killed Jessica is a dull affair. Though indignant, it doesn’t howl in anger. Instead, it sighs and sulks.
No One Killed Jessica sticks to the real-life case’s milestones. In the first half — murder, court case, acquittal — it stays mostly with Jessica’s sister, Sabrina Lall (Vidya Balan), and this is where the film’s obvious emotional connect gets severed.
Hurting and seeking justice for her sister, Sabrina is good, gentle and quiet. But she wears her suffering as a badge of honour and is the film’s main sulker. We feel Sabrina’s pain, understand the middle class impotence when up against a rich and powerful adversary, saleable officials and a pliable system. But Balan’s Sabrina, with her righteous and solemn demeanour, becomes a burden on our conscience, and is soon boring and tiring.
In this part of the film we also spend some time with the investigating officer (who is very good), Manish’s family, Delhi’s party aunty Mallika Sehgal (Bubbles Sabharwal), and Jessica’s friend and key witness, Vikram (Neil Bhoopalam).
The film picks up in the second half when journalist Meera Gaity (Rani Mukerji), who we had met briefly in the first-half, takes charge of the case after all the witnesses turn hostile and the accused are let off.
Meera, by her own admission, is a bitch, and there is a lovely song, Aali Re, that sets the tone of her character. A celebrity reporter, Meera gets to cover all the big stories, she sleeps around, abuses, and has both, bile and bite. She is a Delhi journalist, its best and worst kind.
Mukerji’s Meera is the sum total of several parts — of certain NDTV and Tehelka worthies who conducted the stings, asked audiences to SMS their anger, helped with the candlelight vigil at India Gate and kept the story going after the court had adjourned. While haranguing one and all — viewers, colleagues, even Sabrina — Meera pursues the story till justice is served.

RAJ KUMAR GUPTA, who made Aamir and managed to create intense drama around one man and a red suitcase, fails to do that here. He spends far too much time with Sabrina which would have been OK if her heavy moral breathing didn’t fog up the screen. Sabrina’s character is the film’s main flaw. She is morally upright but emotionally frigid. Gupta ignores the film’s other characters, and at the end I couldn’t quite figure if he intended to do anything more than just present a dramatised version of events.
We get a glimpse of what Jessica was like, but not enough. Killer Manish remains an unknown entity and most of the celebrity witnesses are treated as loathsome caricatures and let off easy. A mild slap on the wrist is reserved for our justice system — courts, lawyers and cops.
But Gupta does manage to put in some interesting details — like Manish’s mother pleading with her husband, “Mere Monu ko kuch nahin hona chahiye”, and a `70 lakh bribe to a cop for not beating up Manish while he is in custody — and establish the Haryana cross-connection that Delhi often gets caught in, the hollow core of Delhi’s celebrities and how efficiently the entire system can be manipulated. I just wish his film was more angry and less sulky.
Rani overacts but is a welcome relief after the wilting Vidya Balan. The supporting cast, especially the cops and politicians, are all very good. The film’s music, by Amit Trivedi, is outstanding, and Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics are crude and cute.