Victoria Review - Deserved A Bigger Budget & A Bigger Thought Process

Sonalee Kulkarni, Pushkar Jog, and Aashay Kulkarni bring a rare horror-thriller to Marathi cinema called Victoria. A Marathi film with an English name is not an issue at all, but a Marathi film with British theory certainly is. The Conjuring has set a benchmark for so many old cliches that you are not supposed to fear any such elements any further. You know, that's why I love the old horror classics of James Whale, Rouben Mamoulian, and Alberto Cavalvanti, because they don't come with those typical cliches. The ghost is always behind the girl or the door, visible only in the mirror, running away through a window; its first presence is always felt in a dark room, etc. These freaking repetitive tantrums have to stop somewhere. Evil Dead gave us the 'remote wooden house' and 'buried' formulas, and today's Conjuring Universe gave us 'Photo Frames screams' and 'Doll'. Aren't we ever going to get over these elements? Victoria is as blind as the Marathi audience to pick them up and stick them on their wall.Victoria is about a remote hotel of the same name, situated in Scotland. A married couple, Ankita (Sonalee Kulkarni) and Siddharth (Aashay Kulkarni), meet the hotel's owner, Adhiraaj (Pushkar Jog), who is living all alone there. Ankita, who has been suffering from a mental disturbance for over a year, starts seeing the soul of Adhiraaj's ex-lover, Renuka. Ankita is off to find the secrets hidden in the hotel's restricted corridor, while Siddharth has a silly notion about his wife having a soft corner for Adhiraaj. Will Ankita find the reason behind the terrifying visuals of Renuka, or is there more to Adhiraaj's story than meets the eye?In about 95 minutes, Victoria will provide answers to all your questions, and they are plausible too. Only if they could have been new and unique. Don't tell me you didn't see that coming. in case you are not a regular moviegoer. The screenplay is too slow in the first 15 minutes as per the criteria of 'characters introduction'.. Well, that's only before Ankita enters the restricted room for the first time, for the sake of some useless 'dare' given by her so-called caring and funny husband. The writing is at fault most of the time because the characters don't look too serious about the narrative. After finishing a decent first half, Victoria enters the danger zone in the second half and succumbs to the jinx of a multi-layered thriller. There is nothing much wrong except that you know what's going to happen and when. Had there been something interesting and quite surprising in the conclusion, I believe Victoria would have ended as one of the finest examples of solid low-budget horror-thrillers in Marathi cinema. Something that Vishal Furia and Pooja Sawant's Lapachhapi did in 2017.Sonalee Kulkarni should continue doing such female-centric roles as it provides her with an opportunity to do something more than regular rom-coms and forceful dance numbers. Here, she goes back to those chic vibes for a while, but comes back, and comes back strongly. Pushkar Jog seems to be taking a break from his image-driven roles, and excluding a few overdramatic scenes, he has achieved what he was looking for. I have a double mind about Aashay Kulkarni: was the character written like that, or was he acting like that? He still looked decent throughout the film, until that climax came to spoil his character for him. The supporting cast is hardly there, with a few foreigners struggling with their own English accents—because they tried 'acting'.If one has to consider the low budget of Victoria, then you'll see how larger this film is on the technical front. Of course, it has to have those outdated stunners, screams, annihilations, and darkness, but see how they have managed to do it with a limited budget and property. The sound mix does sound artificial, as you know in real life we don't hear stamped noises while just looking back or saying surprised "hi" to anybody. Those horror formulas are unrealistic, illogical, and unwanted, but if you like them in The Conjuring and Evil Dead, then you should like them in any other film too, including Victoria. The VFX work and background score are indeed good, and they shall pave the way for others to follow in Marathi cinema. Jeet Ashok and Virajas Kulkarni's attempt was praiseworthy, but the outcome was below par. The writing and direction could have been much more filtered and logical, but maybe the pressure of challenging new courses into mainstream filmmaking had them under heat. Overall, with a few flaws here and there, Victoria is fairly watchable.