Perhaps it is time Bollywood discards the candy floss version of the great Indian family and adopts this more real, searing version.

As for Titli the film, the future in a mainstream movie environment looks bleak. If you seek entertainment and/or stories with redemption look elsewhere. But if cynicism and hopelessness excite you, this is the movie for you.

Titli ties everything up with a somewhat contrived, fairy-tale-ish ending, but at least the packaging is satisfyingly gritty. In other words, it’s like a plate of chicken curry in which the gravy is delicious, but the pieces don’t have as much meat as they should.

Whether Titli, the reluctant brother, transforms into a butterfly and flies away or not, there is certainly no escaping from Behl’s non-apologetic, brutal and bloody tale.

Titli isn’t a run-of-the-mill Bollywood film designed merely for the purpose of delivering entertainment. It poses questions, lays bare uncomfortable truths, and delivers sledgehammer blows.

Titli must feature on your must-watch list of movies simply because it will be a long time before you are treated to such superb performances and effective storytelling at the movies again.

Unrelentingly grim, morally unmoored, Titli festers like a sore on your consciousness. Misleadingly funky second trailer notwithstanding, it’s unlikely to be anyone’s idea of fun. Yet, from time to time, it’s important that a film like this get under our skin and remind us why we value catharsis so much.

No family is quite happy in Behl’s imagination. Least of all the overtly happy one – that of Prince. You know that all the loving is built on a foundation of lies and delusions. Despite that the film does try and leave us on a note of change. Titli talks to Neelu about starting all over again in their relationship and rebuilding their family from the scratch. A talk that comes loaded as much with hope as it does with scepticism. There can be no clean ends and closures in the world of Titli.

Stripped of its class dimensions, however, the movie has a raw power and imagination. Behl and Katariya wash off the gloss, dishonesty and sentimentality that have clung to depictions of the Indian family and reveal a face that is ugly but also commonplace. Above all else, Titli is a horror movie.