Freddy Takes Kartik Aaryan Far Ahead Of The Competition

Freddy(Disney+Hotstar)

Starring Kartik Aaryan,Alaya F

Directed by Shashanka Ghosh

Rating:****

Spinechilling and a sleepstealer,  Freddy is to Kartik Aaryan’s career what The Joker  was to  Joaquin  Phoenix. Both the actors bring out the darkest side  of their personality to play characters who are tortured  by their  loneliness  into  doing things that  perhaps normal  human beings don’t.

Eerily credible, Freddy is  a  new universe  of pain and  vendetta  for Kartik  to explore. Providentially the  plot  charts a  riveting destiny for the actor, giving him the  opportunity to deep-dive  into his psyche to explore emotions that he  has never touched  before.This is not only  Kartik  Aaryan’s  most challenging part, it is  also  vivid  proof of how  deep he is  willing to go into his  subconscious  for a complex role.

 Layer after  layer, Freddy peels  off   social niceties that define civil behaviour. Both  Kartik and  Alaya  F are  willing and  able to reveal the beast  within. There are constant twists  in the plot with  the  two  playing against one  another  like  a tortured  Tom and an abused  Jerry.

Kartik is  not  afraid to let his twisted character have his  say. There are some ravishing images  of loneliness never seen before.My favourite montage of melancholy and  solitude is when the desolate  dentist  dances for his pet turtle Hardy. It is a dance  of  locked-down freedom,  neither  liberating nor happy. Kartik  dances  like caged  bird flapping its wings against its cage  in the  hope that some day it will  be able  to  flee from its aloneness.

The dance is  definitely  going to make   it as part  of  Kartik’s retro-showreel one  day  For now, Freddy is just the  fillip his  growing stardom  needed  to show how far he has come in no time at  all.

Parvez Sheikh’s  writing tries to stay a step ahead  of the audience  and  succeeds to  a great extent.Suspense thrillers  do not have a  very  impressive history  in Bollywood. Freddy  shines bright in its depiction of despair and darkness. Director Shahanka Ghosh extracts the  optimum  dread  from the  plot.

Kartik Aaryan’s  dentist’s act has a  whole  lot  of sharp teeth.And that’s the whole tooth.