“Beware of who you let into your life.”
The film’s promos suggest that in these times of disconnect and despair, we risk losing everything to charming psychopaths, whom we may welcome into our lives just for their company.
While that risk is debatable, the director (and scriptwriter’s) ability to spin a story well is not. “Being Cyrus” begins at a somnolent pace that seems to mirror life in Panchgani. The eponymous narrator, played with ‘to-the-manor-born’ ease by Saif Ali Khan, arrives into the world of Dinshaw (Naseeruddin Shah) and Katy (Dimple Kapadia), who are a couple only in name. The arrival of someone who doesn’t seem to have a past would normally be regarded with fascination, perhaps trepidation, surely not eagerness. Yet the cloying fondness and sexual desperation that Katy displays towards Cyrus tells a story of its own. In fact, the first half of the film keeps you hooked only through the unconscious game played out between Katy and her husband. Her desperation to live the good life and her doped-out husband’s equally stubborn refusal to live even the normal life do manage to hold your interest. Perhaps Dimple’s best (only?) performance since ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ and a delightful turn by Naseer are to be credited.
The film begins to pick up pace when Farookh, Dinshaw’s grubby and violent younger brother, played by Boman Irani, enters the story. From here, the film begins to reveal its true colors. Even as you sense the tragic end, you want to watch simply to see Katy and Cyrus play mind games. The real mastermind, however, seems to float in and out of the film and is also the key casting failure.
The characters enter each other’s lives in Pulp Fictionesque manner. But towards the end, you get the feeling the director tried to rush things a bit, with the crime being committed and the investigation being concluded within a few minutes of each other. This is where the film outruns the story, which is tragic considering the final length is only about 90 mins, less than even the typical English film.
The end is pedestrian, and Cyrus does something that’s completely out of character. Was the director/writer pandering to the star or was it written that way? The answer could be crucial to the success of more such scripts.