Judgementall Hai Kya is nutty, but fresh.

Judgementall Hai Kya is a nutty film. I still think I’ve not properly processed it, or understood what writer Kanika Dhillon, director Prakash Kovelamudi and producer Ekta Kapoor were going for. It has the elements of a murder mystery, bits of Disturbia, an Om-Shanti-Om style respect for the film industry, and at the centre of it all - the glorious, mighty Kangana Ranaut. Here, she’s Bobby, a mentally ill patient. When we first meet her, she permanently damages her sleazy boss’ face.

Ranaut revels in playing these firebrand characters without a moral compass. She started this trend in Bollywood, all the way back in 2011 with Tanu Weds Manu, as the irreverent Tanuja, up until 2017’s Simran. Bobby is the most oddly endearing of all her characters. She never really gets an arc to justify her craziness. Unlike other firebrands that came before her, she has no reason (except for an undercooked childhood trauma) to be so blunt and immoral.

Which is why Keshav (Rajkummar Rao) becomes less a character, more a justification. We see him, baring his bulging muscles, as he romances Reema (Amyra Dastur). Kanika, who’s written the story, screenplay and dialogues, never underlines Keshav’s evil. There’s this one electric scene where Bobby and Keshav chase each other through the wings of a theatre. She yells, he menacingly walks. They both have this deep, abiding pain in their eyes.

The first half of Judgementall Hai Kya veers from psychotic to flat out fabulous. The editing by Nitin Baid is inspired, and cameraman Pankaj Kumar works his magic. His camera becomes a storytelling device rather than a mere motion-capturing object. The palettes by production designer Ravi Srivastava and costume designer Sheetal Sharma characterise Bobby more than the script itself. The film is doused in this neon sensibility.

On paper, it’s electric. But, the execution is sloppy. Barring this one spectacularly done scene where an attempted suicide is symbolised, the rest of the film feels contrived. The second half starts to seem more convenient that coincidental. The situations become more and more unrealistic, and it all culminates in a half-baked climax involving arson and an orphanage. There’s also doses of overdone symbolism where the everyday characters in Bobby’s humdrum life become superheroes, motivating her to catch the bad guy and bring him to justice..

When the story shifts to London, Kanika and Prakash starliken Bobby to Sita and Keshav to Raavan. Only, in this modern-day re-telling, the former is out to get the latter. It’s just as exhausting as it sounds. But, it's propelled by its out-and-out originality.

Judgementall Hai Kya instantly reminded me of another film about two hopelessly broken people, Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha. There, too, Ved (Ranbir Kapoor) grappled with his inner demons and the two sides to his damaged psyche. Imtiaz bunged in morals about letting go, living life, parental pressure and so much more. In Judgementall ... too, Kanika tries to say too much.

She follows the trend that she did in Kedarnath and Manmarziyaan, both of her previous works, which had a strong start but derailed in the second hour. The film becomes exhausting rather than exhilarating.But, it’s driven by the sheer talent of Kangana Ranaut, Rajkummar Rao, Hussain Dalal, Amyra Dastur and Amrita Puri.

Kangana is absolutely electric. Raj has less to do. We never really see Keshav as anything but cheekily vulgar or lustfully murderous. But, he sells it. He makes us buy into Keshav, his dishonesty and strips away the layers of his psyche to show us a more sympathetic villain than the one in the screenplay.

Hussain, Amyra and Amrita play supporting roles. They help to drive home this crazed sense of normalcy. Watch out for this scene where Hussain’s character Skypes Keshav while he’s about to get laid. It’s very funny.

In the end, Judgementall Hai Kya never really peaks the way you hope it will. It’s far more complex a look into mental health than the stylised and sanitised Dear Zindagi, but lacks in terms of being a thriller like Sriram Raghavan’s Andhadhun.

The ending also left me dazzled. There’s a long shot of Bobby walking with all the characters she’s cooked up in her head? Her voiceover narrates that Judgementall … is nothing but a parable about mental health. As Ranaut fierily talks about the ostracisation of mentally ill people from society, I remember flashes of multiple press interviews where she talked about the film being a biography of her own life.

I finally understood what that means, because rather than treating Bobby as an outcast, she plays her as kind and affectionate. In the end, she's always trying to help.

Like its central character, Judgementall Hai Kya is erratic. It has its peaking highs and its bottomless lows. But its sheer originality makes it worth a shot.