It is a searing, unmissable film​, the best you will see this year. If you feel any other way, well, go ahead, sue me.

‘Detective Byomkesh Bakshy!’ is a film that filled me to the brim. It is the kind of film that I will recall and savour, flaws and all. The pacing is languorous, and in the second-half, the stutters become obvious. Its biggest weakness is its leading man Sushant Singh Rajput…

The first thing you should know about ‘Dum Laga Ke Haisha’ is that it has a story. Verily, the thing that movies ought to have before they get made, the very thing that Bollywood forgets, unbelievably, so often. The story is the basis of a solid, honest-to-goodness script, a lead couple that wins you over gradually but surely, and a bunch of actors who know exactly where they are at.

‘Qissa’ is lambent, lovely, and completely seductive up till this point. It then tumbles into another zone, where an accident leads to a death, and the appearance of a ‘ghost’, and the tale stutters.

A movie based on a childhood favourite book can usually never measure up. But I was wonderfully surprised by ‘Paddington’ : the bear is not precious and cute, he is just curious and sweet, the way I remembered him.

Like all his films, ‘Lingaa’ is basically three hours of Rajini Saar doing his thing. And it is three hours of full-on `masti’ and ‘mazaa’: no half-measures for the man who just has to walk across the screen in slo-mo to send his fans into paroxysms.

‘Khubsoorat’ is bubblegum-y and air-headed and good-natured, and its biggest strength is that it keeps it consistent, becoming one of those films that over-delivers precisely because it under-promises.

Overall the film, overlaid by a peppy Indian Ocean number that lays out the connection between the `aadhe bujhe chiraag’ that power `poora Kanpoora’, does what it sets out to do : present us with a vivid portrait of a once vibrant city in the throes of decay and darkness.

The tight focus on these two worlds leaves out the other Indias that may not be confined to the single-minded rigour of either camp, beauty or Durga Vahini. There are not just two Indias, as a doyenne in the beauty business and at one time such a popular TV face, declares. There are many more. What choices do the girls who live in those other Indias have? Do they have any at all?

Mehta does well with generating dread and creating a couple of surprising curves, which almost overcomes some of the plot’s uneven arcs. The songs nearly ruined the film for me, but ‘Citylights’ gives us pause. And an actor who makes us believe, all the way.