Film Review: A Death In The Gunj

Following in the footsteps of her mother Aparna Sen, Konkana has crafted (written and directed) an immensely watchable debut film.
McCluskiegang, four decades ago, was a prosperous town in Bihar (now Jharkhand) with a sizeable number of Anglo-Indians. In the Christmas holidays of 1978, Nandu (Gulshan Devaih) along with his wife Bonnie (Tillotama Shome) and their eight-year-old daughter Tani (Anya Sharma) from Calcutta come to visit his parents O P Bakshi (Om Puri)
and Anupama (Tanuja). Converging for the gettogether in their colonial style house are Vikram (Ranvir Shorey), Brian (Jim Sarbh), Nandu’s 23-year-old cousin Shutu (Vikram Massey) and Bonnie’s friend Mimi (Kalki Koechlin).
Having assembled a motley cast of supremely talented actors, Konkana exploits each of them perfectly to portray not only pronounced relationships, but also the time- frame of the late 70s— by way of songs, the actors’ demeanor, dress or props ( the ubiquitous Yezdi mobike, a packet of Charminar cigarettes, a 10-paise coin or the bluish 100-rupee note).
The film opens with a scene of two of the cast cramming a corpse (its identity withheld from the viewer)in the boot of the car, making the 8-hour trip to Calcutta.
The debutante director takes her time to define the roles of each member of the cast— the patronising Nandu, the dominating duo of Vikram and Brian, the septuagenarian OP relishing his drink and obsessed with his shotgun, the seductive Mimi who we are shown ‘had’ a thing with Vikram but has now trained her sights (and not just that) on Shutu. The latter — having recently lost his father and failed in his college exams — is vulnerable, generally subordinated by others, besides being bullied by Vikram.
The dining table is the setting for further expounding the characters and Sensharma does it astutely, particularly when the pleasure-seeking Mimi seduces Shutu,with the mild rocking of the chair providing sufficient innuendos.
The film is largely in English with a smattering of Hindi and Bengali too. The denouement seems a bit hurried, though one can see it coming in the ‘dying’ minutes of the film.
Sensharma developed the idea from a story by her father Mukul Sharma. The cinematography by veteran Sirsha Ray is excellent while the background score by Sagar Desai — with the strumming of the  guitar — is apt although a bit overdone.