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This is a monthly series where we highlight performances from the film and streaming universe that caught our eye. Since Film Companion watches widely, we decided to curate this list to foreground exceptional work, even if these actors did not have the proverbial spotlight on them.
Theatrical release
Safikul is a role that would have been challenging even for a seasoned actor. He begins as a mischief maker who radiates joie de vivre and by the end of the film, he's weighed down by a terrible grief. Child actor Arif Shaikh gets the complexities of this emotional journey almost effortlessly and delivers a performance that holds Dostojee together. Candid and unaffected, Shaikh is a delight to watch, particularly when he has real-life friend and co-actor Asik Shaikh by his side.
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Ashutosh Rana shines bright in Netflix India’s latest crime drama as the deliciously slimy senior officer Mukteshwar Chaubey. To Mukteshwar, imandari and doing the right thing is adorable but limited within a system designed to reward fickle politicking over effective policing. Rana creates the kind of calculating, self-serving, and oddly self-aware government official we’ve all encountered at one point or another.
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Not for the first time, the talented Avinash Tiwary rises above the tropey screen — this time as a dacoit-style, backward caste criminal in a cat-and-mouse game with a righteous cop. Tiwary does his best to tide over the lazy contrivances of the long-form script, using rage and rebellion as a potent cocktail to craft a compelling supervillain origin story. In terms of both method and madness, this is a performance to watch out for, where he even manages to control incidents that don’t quite involve him.
Theatrical release
Darshana Rajendran in Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey plays a woman caught in a violent, toxic marriage. Her husband (Basil Joseph) slaps her around whenever he pleases. This hardly sounds like a premise that could generate laugh-out-loud comedy, but that’s the effect that the film has on the audience. As Jaya, Darshana almost never cracks a smile. She’s acutely aware that what's happening to her isn't funny, and she never allows us to forget it. The film’s conscious exaggeration works because of her ability to draw the audience’s empathy. The action sequences are among the best you will find in this year’s Malayalam cinema, and Darshana's deft kicks and punches are right on the money.
Theatrical release
As the indulgent father of a girl who gets locked in a freezer, Manoj Pahwa does a fine job of clicking through gears of disappointment and desperation. The man was in a cold war with his daughter before she went missing, and his regret is heartbreaking to watch because of how Pahwa uses his body language. As someone who is also learning how to navigate through — and cure — his own generational prejudice, the veteran actor infuses the 'supporting character' with the sort of subtle subtext we aren't used to seeing in Hindi film parents.
Streaming Platform: Zee5
Kochaal may have had to settle for a lean release in theaters but the film seems to be getting a second life with its premiere on Zee 5. The cleverly deceptive thriller is equally clever even when it comes to its casting choices and this is best explained with what it does to the image of Murali Gopy. At first, he appears to be playing a senior police officer, the kind he’s done a hundred times before. But the film subverts this image and turns it on its head to not only give the titular Kochaal (little man) a formidable rival, but his performance also does a u-turn to also give us the best LOL moments. It gives us the feeling that we’re missing out on an extremely able comic actor in Gopy, hopefully one that we’re soon going to see more of.
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Few actors in the recent past have been more deserving of an ‘Above all’ billing in the opening credits than Radhika Apte in Monica O My Darling, who plays the sassy ACP Naidu. In a role that requires her to be relentlessly unpredictable, even goofy and menacing at once, Apte keeps us on the edge with her deliciously tongue-in-cheek demeanor, constantly breaking into smiles and giggles even as she tightens the noose around Jayant, the chief suspect. Apte barely appears in 7 scenes in the entire film but chews the scenery whenever on screen, displaying the self-assuredness of a veteran who, like her character often preaches, has enough command over their craft to occasionally keep it light-handed — and therein lies the charm of Apte’s act.
Streaming Platform: Netflix
As the heir inapparent of a massive robotics company, Sikandar Kher has all of one proper scene in Vasan Bala’s retro crime comedy. It’s in a shady hotel room, where he recruits the ‘outsider’ and the accountant to bump off the woman who’s blackmailing them. He flexes his freestyle acting muscles here in a way that even outdoes his comic genius in Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive. The way he uses his eyes — as if he’s perpetually amused and disgusted with the mediocrity that surrounds him. The way he cusses — like a man of privilege who can speak the language of minions. The way he smokes — like a stylish hero who is bitter about nepotism doing a number on him. It’s all over the top and in the moment at once.
Theatrical release
As the twisted Mukundan Unni, we got a Malayali version of a lawyer like Saul Goodman, but what’s just as amusing as the film’s dark-as-hell tonality is the stereotypically good-man Vineeth taking his darkest turn yet. There’s a shocking consistency in the performance even when his evil plans play out like comedy scenes to us. In the film’s terrific interval twist, we see Mukundan observing one of these plans coming into fruition with the innocent bliss of a little boy setting a toy store on fire. The ingenious use of voice-overs adds a further comic layer that gets us to see just how Mukundan sees himself. As for his career as an actor, there’s a perfect phrase that describes it best—“a magnificent resurrection”.
