Film Review: ONCE AGAIN

Genre: Drama, Romance
Rating: 3/5
102 minutes 
Director: Kanwal Sethi

Telephonic conversations between a divorcee and a widowed mother — both at least in their late 40s — which gradually progress towards a certain degree of romance, are at the centre of ‘Once Again’, available on Netflix.
Amar Kumar (Neeraj Kabi, fresh from his stint as DCP Parulkar in ‘Sacred Games’) is a moderately successful actor whose daily tiffins arrive from the restaurant-kitchen of Tara Shetty (Shefali Shah). What begins more as a platonic relationship steadily shifts gears. Surrounded at the studios by sycophants, Amar finds a soulmate in Tara during their lengthy 10 pm telephone calls.
Though one would initially, and inevitably, find comparison with ‘The Lunchbox’, ‘Once Again’ has, at its heart, familial relationships too, though in small measure, eg. when Sapna (Rasika Dugal) smugly asks her father ‘You’re serious about her?’
When Amar says that he’s fearful of mountains, Tara admits that she’s apprehensive of the ocean — the metaphor clearly implying that the two are attempting a middle path (compromise).
German-based director Kanwal Sethi has extracted some fine performances, especially from the two lead players –Shefali Shah, who emotes well with her eyes (when Amar nonchalantly introduces her to his friends as the one who supplies him with his tiffins) and Neeraj Kabi, who’s evidently from the Method School of Acting.
But even at 102 minutes the film seems a bit overstretched; and in a few cases the sub-titles fail to match the dialogues. Slow to get off the tracks, the film picks up pace in the second half before coming to a gratifying ending.

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