Ugly (film)

Ugly
Directed by	Anurag Kashyap
Produced by	Arun Rangachari Vivek Rangachari Madhu Mantena Vikas Bahl Vikramaditya Motwane
Starring	Rahul Bhat Ronit Roy Girish Kulkarni Siddhanth Kapoor Tejaswini Kolhapure Vineet Kumar Singh Surveen Chawla
Music by	G. V. Prakash Kumar Brian McOmber (2 songs & Background Score)
Production company	Phantom Films
Distributed by	DAR Motion Pictures
Release dates	24 May 2013 (2013-05-24) (Cannes)
Running time	128 minutes
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	45 million (US$710,000)[1]
Box office	138 million (US$2.2 million)

Ugly is a 2014 Indian drama thriller film written and directed by Anurag Kashyap.^[2] The film was screened in the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.^[3] It also opened the 2014 New York Indian Film Festival. The film stars Girish Kulkarni, Ronit Roy, Tejaswini Kolhapure, Vineet Kumar Singh and Surveen Chawla in pivotal roles. It also feature model turned TV actor Rahul Bhat in an important role and TV actor Abir Goswami in his last film appearance before his death in 2013. The circumstances that led to the birth of Kali, the little girl, was separately made as 'Kali Katha': the prologue, and was released on YouTube.^[4] The film is produced by DAR Motion Pictures and Phantom Films. The digital poster of the film was released on 8 May 2013 and the film was released in India on 26 December 2014 after a delay about the inclusion of a warning about smoking.

Plot

Shalini (Tejaswini Kolhapure) is a middle-class housewife forced to stay at home by her second husband, police-chief Shoumik Bose (Ronit Roy). She considers suicide, and is about to shoot herself in the head with her husband's gun when she is interrupted by her daughter, Kali (Anishika Shrivastava). Unaware of her mother's activities moments earlier, Kali asks her mother to call her estranged father, Shalini's ex-husband, Rahul (Rahul Bhat). It's a Saturday, and Kali's day with her father as decided in the custody agreement from the divorce. Rahul, an aspiring actor struggling to make it big, comes to take her for a drive but ignores her in favour of phone calls to further his career. Rahul leaves Kali alone in the car to go to an audition and to check in with his agent, Chaitanya (Vineet Kumar Singh). When he returns to the car, Kali is missing.

Rahul first searches for Kali through the police, Chaitanya in tow. The local police-captain, Jadhav (Girish Kulkarni), does not take Rahul seriously until he realises that Kali is the stepdaughter of the police-chief. Bose, out of hatred for Rahul, orders Jadhav to accuse Rahul of the kidnapping and to torture both Rahul and Chaitanya to interrogate and punish them. A game of one-upmanship follows as Rahul and Bose search for Kali while simultaneously attempting to upstage the other. After a period of time they sideline the investigation of her abduction and all of them accuse each other of kidnapping her for their personal gain.

Cast

• Rahul Bhat^[5] as Rahul Kapoor/Varshney
• Ronit Roy as Shoumik Bose
• Tejaswini Kolhapure as Shalini Bose
• Vineet Kumar Singh as Chaitanya Mishra
• Surveen Chawla as Rakhi Malhotra
• Siddhanth Kapoor as Siddhant
• Girish Kulkarni as Inspector Jadhav
• Abir Goswami as ACP Gupta
• Madhavi Singh as ACP Upadhyay
• Anshika Shrivastava as Kali Varshney
• Alia Bhatt in a Cameo
• Saharsh Kumar Shukla as Gangster Pujari

Soundtrack

Ugly
Soundtrack cover
Soundtrack album by G. V. Prakash Kumar
Genre	Feature film soundtrack
Length	19:56
Language	Hindi
Label	Zee Music Company
Producer	G. V. Prakash Kumar
G. V. Prakash Kumar chronology
Rajathanthiram (2014) Ugly (2014) Eetti (2014)

The film's soundtrack is composed by G. V. Prakash Kumar and Brian McOmber, with the latter composing two songs and the background score.

Delayed release over depiction of smoking

Anurag Kashyap had initially intended for Ugly to release in mid to late 2013. The Indian Censor Board required a "Smoking is Injurious to Health" sign to be posted in the lower right corner of the frame whenever a character in the film is shown smoking. Kashyap fought this regulation stating " it's the Health Ministry that should take the responsibility of curbing use of tobacco and work towards measures to control it and films should not be a medium to advertise non-smoking."^[6] For a while Kashyap stated that he was not going to release the film until the Board decided to get rid of the rule, but after several months of negotiations, Kashyap decided that he would release the movie with the "Smoking is Injurious to Health" sign while continuing to challenge the rule.^[7] It was released on 26 December 2014.

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Bollywood Hungama	[8]
Bollywood Life	[9]
Cannes	Favorable[10]
Deccan Chronicle	[11]
Economic Times	[12]
Hindustan Times	[13]
IMDb	[14]
IndiaGlitz	[15]
India Today	[16]
Koimoi	[17]
NDTV	[18]
Rediff	[19]
The Times of India	[20]
Zee News

Upon release, Ugly received widespread critical acclaim. The film was premiered at the Cannes film festival and received what Filmfare called a "great response" as a result of standing ovation.^[21] The film released in France in May 2014 with Business of Cinema stating that it had a "brilliant script and amazing performance."^[22]

On 23 December 2014 a special screening was held in Mumbai. First Post said, "Ironically, Ugly looks beautiful. It's all dark, dank and disgusting, and yet impossible to look away from."^[23]

Jogimara calculated score was 71, which means a recommended watch for all.^[24] Koimoi gave 4/5 stars praising the direction and scripts.^[17] Times of India gave 4/5 stars saying " Anurag Kashyap is in top form in this suspense thriller."^[20] Rediff.com gave 4.5/5 star saying it is Kashyap's finest work.^[19] Hindustan Times, Glamsham and Deccan Chronicle gave the film 4 to 4.75 stars out of 5.^[11][25] Yahoo and Zee News gave the film 4/5 stars.^[26]

References

External links

• Ugly at the Internet Movie Database