Andhadhun

About the film

Andhadhun (pronounced [əndʱaːdʱʊn] transl. Indiscriminate, blind, reckless, or without thinking) is a 2018 Indian Hindi-language black comedy crime thriller film co-written and directed by Sriram Raghavan. It stars Tabu, Ayushmann Khurrana, Radhika Apte and Anil Dhawan. The film tells the story of a blind piano player who unwittingly becomes embroiled in the murder of a retired actor.

The script of Andhadhun was written by Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti, Yogesh Chandekar and Hemanth M. Rao. The film was edited by Surti, and K. U. Mohanan was its director of photography. Amit Trivedi composed songs for the film and Jaideep Sahni wrote the lyrics; Raftaar and Girish Nakod co-wrote the title song as guest composers, while Daniel B. George composed the background score. The film was shot in Pune in 44 days spread over more than a year; principal photography began in June 2017 and ended on 17 July 2018.

Plot

Akash Saraf is a Pune-based pianist who feigns visual impairment as an artistic experiment to refine his musical focus. While navigating a street, he is knocked over by a young woman named Sophie. Impressed by his apparent musical talent, Sophie secures him a regular engagement at her father's diner. Although Akash initially utilizes opaque contact lenses during his practice sessions, his growing affection for Sophie prompts him to discard them, choosing instead to simply simulate blindness. The two soon begin a romantic relationship. At the diner, Pramod Sinha, a wealthy, retired actor, notices Akash's skill and hires him for a private performance at his apartment to celebrate his wedding anniversary.

When Akash arrives at the residence, Pramod's wife, Simi, reluctantly lets him in to avoid arousing the suspicion of a nosy neighbor. Upon entering, Akash immediately discovers Pramod's corpse on the floor. Forced to maintain his facade of blindness to protect his life, Akash continues to play the piano while feigning absolute ignorance. He watches as Simi and her hidden paramour—Manohar, a muscular police inspector—clean the crime scene and stuff the body into a suitcase. Disturbed by the ordeal, Akash leaves the building and encounters Sakhu, a lottery ticket seller with a distinctive Lord Shiva tattoo, who helps him hail an auto-rickshaw driven by a man named Murli.

Akash attempts to report the homicide at the local precinct, but he aborts the mission upon discovering that Manohar is the inspector in charge of the station. He quickly improvises a false report about a missing pet cat to escape. Meanwhile, an elderly neighbor, Mrs. D'Sa, informs the police that she witnessed an unfamiliar man entering the Sinhas' apartment on the day of the murder. To silence her, Simi pushes Mrs. D'Sa off the building's ledge. Akash arrives for a scheduled piano lesson just in time to witness the fatal fall, but he is forced to continue his blind act. Soon after, a skeptical neighborhood child surreptitiously records a video of Akash exercising full visual awareness.

Production

Director-writer Sriram Raghavan saw L'Accordeur (The Piano Tuner), a 2010 French short film about a blind pianist, in 2013 at the recommendation of his friend, filmmaker Hemanth M Rao. Raghavan said although his film is different, the French film was its "basic germ". He wanted Rao to write a script based on the short but Rao was directing a film of his own. Raghavan then worked on Badlapur (2015) and had the "gist of the story". After reading about Kaabil, which is also about a blind man, he was about to start writing but stopped, thinking having two films about blind people would be "crazy". Raghavan later resumed the script, taking a different approach.

The idea of a blind pianist performing while a body is being dumped and a crime scene cleaned up fascinated Raghavan, who had written a similar scene for his previous film, Agent Vinod (2012), in which a blind girl plays the piano while surrounded by mayhem. Raghavan wrote the script with Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar, Rao and Pooja Ladha Surti. He gave the story idea to Varun Dhawan while they were working on Badlapur but Dhawan became busy with other films and the script was left unfinished. Negotiations with Suriya and Harshvardhan Kapoor also fell through. Raghavan discussed the scenes with the writers, who reacted as viewers.

Raghavan and Biswas were unhappy while translating the dialogue from English to Hindi because they thought in English. Raghavan told Biswas to write the dramatic dialogue in Bengali, which was "at least the Indian idiom". Surti wrote another version of the dialogue because her Hindi was better than that of the others. Raghavan cited the 1996 film Fargo and the eponymous television series as an inspiration, calling them "realistic and yet ... bizarre". One of his friends was in a situation similar to one in the film; he then realised old Hindi films use "piano songs" and decided make the blind pianist the main character.

Music

The title track of the soundtrack of Andhadhun was composed and written by Raftaar and Girish Nakod, and Amit Trivedi composed the remainder of it. The album's lyrics were written by Jaideep Sahni, Raftaar and Nakod. It was released on 5 September 2018 on the Zee Music Company record label. Vocals were provided by Trivedi, Raftaar, Ayushmann Khurrana, Arijit Singh, Abhijeet Srivastava, Aakansha Sharma, Shadab Faridi and Altamash Faridi. The background score was composed by Daniel B. George. The album received a mainly positive response from critics.

Key details