JUGNUMA is a boring, experimental film

Jugnuma Review 1.5/5 & Review Rating

Director: Raam Reddy 

Jugnuma Movie Review Synopsis:
The year is 1989. Dev (Manoj Bajpayee) owns a sprawling fruit orchid estate and resides with his wife Nandini (Priyanka Bose), daughter Vanya (Hiral Sidhu) and son Juju (Awan Pookot) in a colonial mansion. All is going well until the trees in his estate start getting mysteriously burnt. Dev’s manager Mohan (Deepak Dobriyal) begins his investigation. But it reaches a dead end as the workers have been working on the estate for a couple of years and are fiercely loyal to Dev. What happens next forms the rest of the film. 

Jugnuma Movie Story Review:
Raam Reddy’s story is bizarre. Raam Reddy’s screenplay is difficult to decipher and hence doesn’t impress overall, though a few scenes have their charm. Raam Reddy’s dialogues (Hindi dialogues by Varun Grover) are straight out of life.

Raam Reddy’s direction, just like his script, is confusing. The idea is interesting and elements like Dev having lifelike mechanical bird wings, the investigation behind the forest fires etc. do arrest attention. What is most striking about the film is that it’s shot on 16mm and gives a THE GODFATHER-style colour tone. The vintage effect created is both unique and fascinating.

On the flipside, the goings-on are dry, boring and difficult to understand. It becomes tedious to sit through the film’s run time of 115 minutes. One hopes for some sort of high in the climax. Alas, the finale will leave viewers scratching their heads. In short, this is a film meant for a very selected and minuscule audience. 

Jugnuma Official Trailer | Manoj Bajpayee | Raam Reddy | Presented by Guneet Monga & Anurag Kashyap

Jugnuma Movie Review Performances:
Manoj Bajpayee is dependable as always. Priyanka Bose yet again proves her worth. Deepak Dobriyal is too good and his voiceover is very impressive. Hiral Sidhu lends able support, while Awan Pookot hardly gets any scope. Tillotama Shome (Radha) is great in a cameo. Rampal Kishore Agarwal (Toot Singh), Jeewan Adhikary (young nomad), Gurpal Singh (Doctor Jayant), Viking (Colonel Bopanna) and the actor playing Keshav are fair. 

Jugnuma movie music and other technical aspects:
JUGNUMA has no songs and no background music. Technically, the film is top-class. Sunil Ramkrishna Borkar’s cinematography is impressive, especially considering the novelty value. Juhi Agarwal’s production design is praiseworthy. Sachin Lovalekar’s costumes are straight out of life. The VFX is first-rate. Siddharth Kapoor and Raam Reddy’s editing is painfully slow. 

Jugnuma Movie Review Conclusion:
On the whole, JUGNUMA is a boring, experimental film that will appeal to an extremely minuscule section of the audience.