Kahaani still holds up for me, the fake pregnancy reveal completely changes everything Vidya Balan's character did in the film. Curious what other twists genuinely got you off guard- not the ones you saw coming from a mile away.
There's so much strong work coming out of Malayalam, Tamil, Marathi, Bengali cinema that barely gets discussed outside its own audience. Curious which films you think deserved a much bigger conversation.
Sometimes you walk out remembering the friend, not the hero. Like Pankaj Tripathi's Rudra in Stree or Saurabh Shukla's judge in Jolly LLB, screen time kam tha, but weight zyada tha.
Been thinking about this lately.
It is 12th Fail for me. So quietly made, no noise, just precision. The kind of film that keeps finding new audiences every few years.
Tumbbad is probably already there. Came out in 2018 but every rewatch gives something new back.
Laapataa Ladies surprised me honestly. Looked like a light comedy, turned out to be one of the sharpest things made about rural India in a while.
Which ones would you add? And anything from the last five years you think is being massively overrated right now?
Been thinking about this after rewatching Andhadhun recently.
The film works partly because Sriram Raghavan is brilliant. But read the script - the structure, the reversals, the way information is controlled - and you realise the writing was doing most of the heavy lifting before a single frame was shot.
Khosla Ka Ghosla is another one. Jaideep Sahni wrote characters so specific and alive that almost any competent director could have made that film work. The writing was the direction.
And honestly, Dil Chahta Hai. Farhan Akhtar made it well, but the dialogue and the characters on the page were already the film.
Which films felt like the writer was the real auteur, not the director?
Been thinking about this lately.
Saif Ali Khan in Omkara. Before that film, he was the romantic lead, the charming guy. Langda Tyagi changed everything. The limp, the jealousy, the way darkness sat so quietly in him. You couldn't unsee it after.
Manoj Bajpayee in Satya. He was around before that, but Bhiku Mhatre made him. A man so specific to that world that you felt like you'd met him somewhere. And honestly, Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Gangs of Wasseypur. Not his first film, but the one where you realised something was different about how this person worked.
Which role completely shifted how you saw an actor? And was there a film where someone you loved completely disappointed you?
Been thinking about this lately.
Dev D came out in 2009 and flopped. Today the same film would probably trend on every platform for a week. OTT audiences love exactly this kind of guy who never learns his lesson - but in 2009 nobody wanted to watch that.
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi. Took years to find its audience, and even now most people haven't seen it.
And Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron - that film is angrier and more relevant about corruption and media than most things being made right now.
Which ones would you add?
I've stopped looking for "interesting" character traits.
Instead, I borrow ordinary habits from people I meet.
Someone who always apologises before asking a question.
Someone who laughs when they're uncomfortable.
Someone who keeps checking their watch even when they're not late.
Those tiny details make characters feel more believable than dramatic backstories.
What's one real-life habit you've borrowed for a character or noticed in someone that would make a great character detail?
When I first started writing, I thought memorable characters needed dramatic backstories or larger-than-life personalities.
Over time, I realised the opposite.
The characters that stay with us are usually built from tiny observations.
A person who laughs when they're nervous.
Someone who says they're "fine" while avoiding eye contact.
Someone who apologises before asking for help.
Those aren't dramatic traits.
They're human.
I think that's why actors like Irrfan Khan felt so believable. It wasn't just the dialogue. It was the pauses, the hesitation, the small reactions that made his characters feel like people we'd actually met.
As writers and even as movie lovers, we often study stories more than we study people.
Maybe it should be the other way around.
What's one small habit or behaviour you've noticed in a film character that instantly made them feel real?
Been thinking about this after rewatching Tumbbad recently.
Most Indian horror fails the same way. The ghost shows up too early, the jump scares replace dread, and the backstory gets explained in full detail so nothing stays mysterious. Fear needs unanswered questions. The moment you understand the monster completely, it stops being scary.
Tumbbad works because Hastar is never fully explained. You understand enough to be terrified, never enough to feel safe. The horror is in the wanting, not just the monster.
Stree is interesting because it flipped the formula entirely - the horror works precisely because everyone refuses to take it seriously until they can't anymore.
Raat (1992) scared an entire generation and Ram Gopal Varma hasn't made anything close to it since. Whatever he understood then about restraint and atmosphere he seems to have actively forgotten.
Which Indian horror film actually got under your skin? And for the flip side - which one promised horror and delivered a comedy you weren't expecting?
Most Hindi film dialogue is written to be heard, not believed. Characters say exactly what they mean, explain their feelings out loud, and never talk around anything.
But occasionally a film breaks this and the dialogue just disappears into the scene. You stop noticing it as writing and just hear two people talking.
Gullak does this every episode. Panchayat too. Masaan has stretches where you forget someone wrote these lines. And some older ones, Ijaazat, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron.
Which film or specific scene had dialogue that felt genuinely real to you? And flip side: which film's dialogue pulled you completely out of the story because it sounded too written?
Rewatching some 90s and 2000s films and noticed we basically have 5 emotional templates on loop. Mother crying at the doorstep. Hero sacrificing his love for family honour. The airport climax. The deathbed forgiveness.
None of these are bad. They became templates because they once worked. But somewhere we stopped earning these moments and started placing them like furniture. Score swells, slow motion kicks in, and the film basically instructs you to cry.
Then something like the pinky promise in 12th Fail or the ending of Masaan comes along. Quiet, almost no score, and it wrecks you. Because the film earned it.
So, which film made you feel something without the standard tearjerker toolkit? And which one went full template and lost you completely?
The best Hindi films I’ve seen give the antagonist a coherent worldview. Gabbar isn’t scary because he’s violent. He’s scary because the people around him are more afraid of going back to him empty-handed than they are of dying. That’s a character with gravity.
But most modern Hindi antagonists just oppose the hero. No internal logic, no wound, nothing at stake for them personally.
Which Hindi film villain actually felt like a real person to you, and why?
I’ll start with Karna. Not Bollywood technically, but every time I sit down to write a character I end up thinking about him. He knew he was fighting for the wrong side. He stayed anyway. Never complained, never asked for pity. Just showed up and did what he believed was right, even when it destroyed him. That kind of character doesn’t ask you to like him. He just makes it impossible to forget him. In pure Bollywood, for me it’s Rancho from 3 Idiots. But not for the reasons most people say. Hirani understood something quietly radical - the most powerful character in a room isn’t always the one who changes. Sometimes it’s the one who refuses to. Everyone around Rancho changed. He just stayed himself. That’s harder to write than it looks. Who’s yours?
I’ll start with Karna. Not Bollywood technically, but every time I sit down to write a character I end up thinking about him. He knew he was fighting for the wrong side. He stayed anyway. Never complained, never asked for pity. Just showed up and did what he believed was right, even when it destroyed him. That kind of character doesn’t ask you to like him. He just makes it impossible to forget him. In pure Bollywood, for me it’s Rancho from 3 Idiots. But not for the reasons most people say. Hirani understood something quietly radical - the most powerful character in a room isn’t always the one who changes. Sometimes it’s the one who refuses to. Everyone around Rancho changed. He just stayed himself. That’s harder to write than it looks. Who’s yours?