Shah jahan Regency: Movie review

Directed by Srijit Mukherjee

My rating: 5/10

The movie is an adaptation of Shankar's acclaimed novel Chowringhee, though the context is changed to recent time.

It's very hard to convey a 500 pages book's story with a two-and-a-half hours of clip. And the expectation from the director gets really high, since Chowringhee has been receiving the praise from its readers for more than 50 years! But I don't know how many days people will remember 'Shah Jahan Regency'.

The movie starts with promise. The first half kept me cheerful. I was meeting the characters from the book. Due to time consistency, only a few of the stories and characters got place in the movie. I missed the atmosphere of the book after the first half. The scenes seemed to adapt only the dramatic sides of Chowringhee and not the deep insights. 

All the actors and actresses played their roles nicely except Rittika Sen's acting felt very artificial to me. She played an important role- Suprita. Originally Sujata of the novel. I was disappointed to discover that Suprita's character was anything but an adaptation of Sujata. Suprita is an air-hostess, I think they have to put an artificial smile on the face always for their profession, but meh, I didn't see any other natural side of the character.

I would say, if you have read the book, no need to try the movie. Nothing can replace the amazing experience you get reading this book, spending hours to know the characters. (In my opinion, only a few directors can preserve the essence of a book in the movie. Rituporno Ghosh was one of them.) And if you try the movie, it might be an average experience for you.