Roopanthara review: Raj B Shetty stars in an inventive but uneven exploration of life

An aged couple from a tiny village visits the booming metropolis of Bengaluru for the very first time. A young boy participates in an online challenge that requires him to perform sinister tasks of varying degrees. A homeless woman is accused of kidnapping a child while an innocuous incident leads a goon into committing a crime he never intended on. Characters of myriad kinds and backgrounds, along with their respective destinies, incidentally collide in filmmaker Mithilesh Edavalath's Roopanthara as a hapless storyteller from a dystopian future recounts all these stories.

Presented by Raj B Shetty, who also plays one of the main roles aside from penning the dialogues and the additional screenplay, Roopanthara is best seen as an idiomatic expression of the need for transformation in humans. It uses the metamorphosis of a larva into a butterfly as a strong metaphor to enunciate its underlying philosophy and employs the many characters, which are riddled with moral conundrums, as specimens to make the case. The opening monologue spells out for us that hope, just as clean air and water, will come at a premium in the future and all this could be the consequence of human life’s reluctance to change, to evolve through the adversities it faces.

Mithilesh Edavalath impresses by leaving his narrative open to interpretation. He starts off his tall expedition by building a soot-laden, cyberpunk-like futuristic dystopia where the rules of survival aren't clear, but inventive nevertheless. Praveen Shriyan’s cinematography uses CGI to a striking effect and the soundscape, including Midhun Mukundan's score and sounds of blustery winds, transports us to a dreary world that almost seems imminent. Interestingly, as the film then dials back the clock and drops us into the present day, the drama and the allure built up to that point start to dwindle a little. The narrative branches out and multiple stories crop up in tandem, demanding our undivided attention as characters go about either resisting change or accepting it. 

The main concern with Roopanthara surfaces in the form of unevenness, when some of the threads begin to fare better than the others. The most engrossing of the lot is the story featuring Lekha Naidu in the role of a nameless beggar and the underrated Bharath GB as a naive police constable. The woman is accused by a self-proclaimed 'elite' man of kidnapping a child (of a clearly fairer complexion) for her begging routine, but a lack of evidence troubles the police in convicting her. The elite man also happens to be the father-in-law of a senior police officer, so the obligations are higher than usual. Some of the best moments of the film occur during this passage. A sense of realism, as typically experienced in Iranian cinema, is imbued into the writing. Although the themes the segment tackles feel familiar, the approach it uses draws us very close to the heart of the matter.

Another absorbing episode is the one featuring Raj B Shetty himself in the role of a goon and Shivamma Yarehanchinala writer-director Jaishankar Aryar as a corporate employee. The two encounter one another over a rather silly event, but things soon spiral out of control and Mithilesh Edavalath's grip on his craft shines the brightest here — particularly when the men get into a tussle in a confined space. It's fascinating to see how the enduring of pain, which is informed by the narrator as one of the main elements of change or transformation, finds a literal meaning during this irrational fight and goes on to leave us with a deep thought to ponder upon. This particular story also refers to the storyteller we meet in the beginning, but the exact reference is best left undisclosed. 

Pain also becomes the operative word in the remaining two segments, particularly in the one centred on a poor, ailing farmer (Somashekhar Bolegaon) and his wife (Hanumakka). Endearing and gut-wrenching in equal measure, the story traces the couple's journey as they decide to leave their worries behind for a day and fulfil the wife’s desire to tour the city of Bengaluru. “Grant me three wishes, Dasharatha,” she says during their impromptu role play and he cutely addresses her back as Kaikoyi (not Kaikeyi). But when their seemingly fun day out turns into absolute misery, one of them is then forced to undesirably cross the threshold of human will and agony. While the performances of the actors, both being lesser-known talents, are terrific, the director’s inability to balance poignance and melodrama makes the story a bit too screechy. The open-ended conclusion doesn’t help either, especially in the large scheme of things.

That our present is the tethering to both our past and present becomes the central focus of the final thread of Roopanthara, which features a young, drugged-up boy facing up to his troubled childhood. An ominous online game, like the Blue Whale Challenge, entangles the boy and asks him to deal with inner demons in the worst way possible, leading him to nearly destroy not just his but several lives at once. Again, this particular story begins with a lot of promise but the writing fails to do complete justice to it. How the boy’s destiny intersects with those of others ends up being a tad outrageous, and the resolution it finally offers (which further triggers a new chain of events) feels wishy-washy. 

Roopanthara, despite being a supremely sophisticated idea, is ultimately bogged down a little by its own ambition. Its desire to homogenise human life and tell us that everything converges after a point is certainly novel, but as pointed out already, the final result isn’t necessarily greater than the sum of its parts. Where it really works, though, is in raising complex questions about our being and never spoon-feeding the audience the answers. Mithilesh Edavalath, with the support of a solid cast and Raj B Shetty's acumen, makes an assured debut and one hopes to see more inventive voices such as his become part of Kannada cinema.

Watch the trailer of Roopanthara here:

Swaroop Kodur is a freelance film writer, critic, and a fledgling filmmaker. 

Disclaimer: This review was not paid for or commissioned by anyone associated with the film. Neither TNM nor any of its reviewers have any sort of business relationship with the film’s producers or any other members of its cast and crew.