A story about the black widow of six dysfunctional husbands could have been filmed like a grisly chapter out of Manohar Kahaniyan or a blood and gore spill in a Ramsay horror film. And yet in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Saat Khoon Maaf, you find startling strands of brilliance like,”Zyada kabhi zyada nahin hota..hamesha kam hi hota hai..aur jo kam mein jeena seekh le usse kabhi kami nahin hoti’ (More is never more. It is always less and those who learn to live with lacks, never lack anything.)

And the film oozes atmosphere much like Shyam Benegal’s Trikaal which captured the last gasp of Portuguese rule in Goa and where long corridors of a crumbling villa breathed of stagnant secrets and death. In a delicious simile, Vivaan Shah, much like Trikaal’s Naseeruddin Shah, returns to a villa where he had experienced heady youth to narrate the story of its inmates in a flashback.

Unlike Leela Naidu’s Dona Maria Souzasoares however, Priyanka Chopra’s Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes does not grieve endlessly over the fatal end of a marriage but goes on to marry six times, each time running into a man she cannot forgive and so must do away with, compulsively, clinically. Yet, despite the rather darkly futile premise, there are times you catch your breath because Vishal Bhardwaj, one of the few really literate film makers in the country, with his sense of history and understanding of the written word, elevates an ordinary moment into a marvel. Like the scene where Priyanka Chopra’s Susanna is wearing black and the voice-over likens the sight to snow falling over night clad mountains. Or when Irrfan Khan’s poet is first heard talking about the clout of a ‘kudaal’…a spade that decides whose faith is stronger. You have to hear the film and not just see it to catch the nuances of the language. There is also the subtext of a nation’s history that runs like a ticker across the narrative. Operation Blue Star, India’s nuclear and space programme break throughs, the unrest in Kashmir, the demolition of Babri Masjid all play in the backdrop as Susanna first impetuously falls in love and then in murderous rage.

We don’t really know for sure, if Vishal wanted to draw a parallel between Susanna’s serial disillusionment with life and our waxing and waning idea of who we are as a nation but the detailing creates interesting texture. The visuals are engrossing. The bloody whip fight between Susanna’s first husband Edwin Rodrigues (Neil Nitin Mukesh, who is a crazily jealous Army Major with a wooden leg) and a mute servant. The crazy world of her rockstar husband Jimmy Stetson (John Abraham) who can’t stay off drugs. The shadowy faithfuls (one of whom is played by Usha Uthup) helping her in executing and covering the murders.

There is Susanna’s third husband Wasiullah Khan (Irrfan Khan) spouting poetry in the lost paradise of Kashmir, living out sado-masochist perversions at night. His snowy grave and a white cat strolling across it. The descent in a snake pit that ends the life of her fourth husband, Nicolai Vronsky (Aleksandr Dyachenko) who is perhaps a Russian spy and definitely a liar.

Till now, it is love or the misplaced idea of it that is guiding Susanna in her luckless search for a soul mate but after her encounter with the Viagra popping, police inspector Keemat Lal (Annu Kapoor), she degenerates into a self-debasing seductress who will sleep with and then marry a man she loathes just to save her own skin.

By this time, it has also become easier and easier for her to swat the men like flies so she gets rid of the randy policeman too.  Dr  Modhusudhon Tarafdar (Naseeruddin Shah) a mushroom smitten Bengali doctor who dupes her into marrying him is her last shot at love and murder.

A savage fire, a charred villa with a woman’s body, a possible suicide are some of the loose ends tied up in the end by a forensic doctor Arun (Vivaan Shah), who owes his education and his happy life to Susanna. Interesting journey so far but though it hooks our attention, it does not involve us emotionally. Despite a bravura performance by Priyanka Chopra, the film just skims the surface of Susanna. Chopra has been grudged praise for some unfathomable reasons by critics but she walks and talks Susanna with supreme poise.

She could  have so easily played the darkness of her widow with grating, stylised arrogance but she is quiet and sedate, angry and insane in just the right proportions. It is not her fault that her role has skin but no soul. We don’t get to see the inner world of this harrowed woman except when the voice-over tells us that love for her is like a saraab,  a mirage that appears to be but never is. Ho hum. We don’t get to see how her heart and her soul deal with each murder and that is why Saat Khoon Maaf does not linger in your memory like the raw aftertaste of Omkara and Maqbool. The wonderful music is not treated well in its entire glory and the last twist is kind of tame. Look out though for the cameos of Ruskin Bond, whose short story inspired the film and the ever dependable Konkona Sensharma.

The performances are uniformly good. Neil and John disappear in their sordid characters with ease and Vivaan with his impeccable diction and dramatic timing is a real find. And if the well-crafted film does not live up to its potential, it is only because it puts a wink where a heart beat should have been.

Reema Moudgil is the author of Perfect Eight. (http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-reema-moudgil-book-9380032870) . More on Story Wallahs.  Also check other books by Unboxed Writers in our Store.