The Storyteller has a lot to like and admire, recommends Mayur Sanap.
The opening frame of The Storyteller, which is Director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan's cinematic adaptation of Satyajit Ray's Bengali short story Golpo Bolo Tarini Khuro, takes us to vintage Kolkata, when it was called Calcutta.
We see the city's iconic Writer's Building and simultaneously hear our protagonist Tarini Bandopadhyay (played by Paresh Rawal) bidding goodbye to his employer Amrit Publishers after 11 months of working there.
Bandopadhyay says he hopped on 73 different jobs in his career but never stuck to one place for more than six months. While announcing his retirement, Bandopadhyay is told that his storytelling would be missed by everyone at the office.
Just when he is ready to embrace his retirement, Bandopadhyay comes across a newspaper advertisement asking for a storyteller in Ahmedabad. Curious about getting to experience something new, he decides to give it a try and arrives in Gujarat.
He learns that the ad was published by rich businessman Ratan Gardodia (Adil Hussain), who wants a storyteller as a cure for his chronic insomnia.
Gardodia is a lonesome man who admittedly doesn't understand much beyond money and accounting books. At one point, he even mocks Bandopadhyay's uprightness by saying, 'Yeh duniya sochne waalon ki nahin karne waalon ki hain (this world is for doers not thinkers).'
On the other hand, Bandopadhyay mildly rebukes Garodia for his 'ungrateful capitalist mentality'.
Despite their cultural and moral contrasts, Tarini forms a cordial equation with Ratan who is very much smitten by Bandopadhyay's unique storytelling talent.
When Garodia learns that Bandopadhyay is against idea of publishing his stories, his shrewd business mind plays a trick that changes the course of their friendship. Garodia decides to capitalise on Bandopadhyay's stories and publishes them as his own.
More revelations follow that mount the gentle morality of this tale about friendship, betrayal and guilt.
From the first frame itself, The Storyteller invites us into its vintage charm which feels refreshing from the current lot of films and shows. The film also benefits from its lovely cinematography and production design that makes it come cinematically alive.
Director Ananth Narayan Mahadevan, who works on the script by Kireet Khurana, moves the drama at a leisure pace without overdoing the dramatic tension of the scenes.
The film also finds ways to deploy warm moments of humour. This is apparent in scenes when Bandopadhyay's maach-loving (fish) Bengali feels aversion towards the 'ghaas phoos' Gujarati food or the way he craftily asks Garodia's cook (played by a very charming Jayesh More) to prepare a fish meal for him.
Sure, the cultural stereotypes could have been done away with, but you don't mind it because there is a certain warm-heartedness in these scenes.
You can't fault the performances either, and all the actors are delightful to watch.
Paresh Rawal's Tarini Bandopadhyay is a milder version of Amitabh Bachchan's Bhashkor Banerjee from Piku. There's an unexpressed ache to his Bandopadhyay who lives in his own world and own interpretations of things around him after losing his loving wife.
Adil Hussain is suitably understated and leaves a mark as a canny Gujarati businessman.
Ultimately, it is the chemistry and interplay between Rawal and Hussain that is particularly captivating and makes this film dramatically absorbing.
I just wish the film had more to offer to Tannishtha Chatterjee and Revathy who look at ease in their respective roles but their character arcs feel incomplete.
Overall, The Storyteller has a lot to like and admire about it. It's the kind of film that's carefully designed to be savoured in leisure.
The Storyteller streams on Disney+Hotstar.
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