‘Qala’ Review: A Stale Drama with a Cast of Confused Characters

The Indian film industry keeps pushing when it comes to delivering quality content to Netflix. The streaming service has become the house of many international film industries, such as those in South Korea and Spain. It seems like every single week we get several movies and shows from all over the world, and that is really what makes Netflix the king of the streaming platform, with constant content from all over the world. Sadly, not everything is good, and this time India might have gone a bit too far in the “not-so-good” direction.

Qala is a film directed by Anvita Dutt and stars Tripti Dimri, Swastika Mukherjee, and Babi Khan. The film tells the story of Qala, a young singer, who has been making waves in the Indian film industry by being a fantastic singer in the movies. However, what people don’t see is that Qala is assailed by constant anxiety and depression, which come from her relationship with an abusive producer, an abusive mother, and the envy he suffered from living with his adopted brother. Now, all of those feelings will try to get to her in one way or another.

Qala is a movie that seems to have been made with very good intentions behind it. You can feel that the director, the writers, and everybody were trying to say something important here. And it is significant. The movie focuses mainly on the character of Qala, played by Dimri, and her mental health. Mental health is one of the most significant issues in today’s society. For decades, mental health has been neglected as something that works itself out and that it is better to ignore.

Now we know that is not the case, and so, we need to take care of our minds as well as the rest of our bodies. It is essential in order to live a pleasant life in recent times. However, the movie tackles this important issue on a very surface level and tries to tie it up with feelings of guilt. It is not that this is an impossible scenario, but it is indeed the most cliché of them all. We see the main character descend into madness, and it is worrisome in its representation of how that occurs.

On top of that, the movie also has a very dreadful issue, and that is the fact that every single character in the movie impresses by being boring and uninteresting. We know so little about the characters at the end of the movie that it is baffling that the film runs for about two complete hours. This is the result of the many songs that are performed within the film and really add next to nothing to the overall story or theme. Without the songs, the movie would be so much shorter and better for it.

In its current form, the movie is a series of vignettes where we see the main character going through life and suffering all kinds of abuse, over and over again. We learn nothing about her abusers and next to nothing from the victim as well, as we see her just run in circles from situation to situation. The point that our main character is suffering was made very well at the beginning of the film, but we just need to see it 10 more times before the movie is over. It is repetitive and, thus, boring.

The acting is also extremely awkward. All the actors are way too over-expressive, and they feel more like caricatures than real people. This is a shame because this cartoonish feeling in the performances crashes really hard against the serious and often grim tone of the rest of the movie. Why is this happening? It is hard to say, but it is probably the result of the direction. The lip-synch throughout the songs is also quite horrible. It might be that this last element has a thematic purpose, but it is never stated clearly enough.

In terms of visuals, the movie does have some superb moments, sometimes. The entire visual scheme feels very inconsistent. Sometimes the camera is able to frame shots and create scenes with a lot of mood and style, and at other times, the camera seems to be just shooting the actors and letting the action take its course. It wouldn’t feel wrong if the lighting and the atmosphere were consistent, but it feels like the director wasn’t really sure about the film’s look or had trouble keeping it consistent from beginning to end.

In the end, Qala tries to do good by drawing attention to a very important topic in today’s society. However, the execution of the idea brings many problems to light, and most of all, the film is just too boring to keep people watching from beginning to end. Some people will slip into their phones, and others will simply stop the movie and choose something else. This is the result of characters that don’t feel genuine, making it hard to attach to any of them. There are no ideas, but there are definitely bad executions.

SCORE: 5/10