Eros International and Drishyam Films’ Rukh (UA) is the story of a boy who rediscovers his lost connections with his father and rebuilds ties with his family when a shocking incident turns his life upside down.
Dhruv (Adarsh Gourav) studies in a school and lives in a boarding. He is oblivious to the financial crisis in his family. His life takes a turn when he gets the horrific news that his father, Divakar (Manoj Bajpayee), has died in a car accident. Dhruv tries to cope with the tragedy but he starts to get pieces of information which make him wonder whether his father’s death was an accident or a premeditated murder. He now sets out to unravel the mystery and, in the process, learns things about his father, which he didn’t know.
Meanwhile, his mother, Nandini (Smita Tambe), tries to hide from Dhruv things which she knows. Does Dhruv get to know the truth ultimately? Does Nandini get to know what had led to Divakar’s death? Why does Robin’s (Kumud Mishra) name crop up whenever Dhruv tries to get to the bottom of it all?
Atanu Mukherjee’s story is depressing right from the word ‘go’. As it is, a young man’s (Divakar) untimely death is sad enough, and then, details about his dysfunctional family further depress the audience. The screenplay, written by Atanu Mukherjee and Akash Mohimen, moves at a leisurely pace, often testing the viewers’ patience. The first half, especially, is boring and quite dull. Although the post-interval portion is better, it is so only marginally. The climax makes one wonder why Nandini reveals all that she does to Dhruv when the whole purpose of her maintaining silence was to not reveal the truth to Dhruv. Since the audiences are hardly allowed to understand what type of a person Divakar was, they don’t feel engaged as facets of his personality are revealed one by one in flashback scenes and through dialogues. All in all, the story is depressing and lacklustre, and the screenplay, dull and depressing. Dialogues (by Vasan Bala) are realistic.
Manoj Bajpayee is supremely natural and lives the character of Divakar. He acts with effortless ease and makes the character believable. Adarsh Gourav is suitably restrained in the role of Dhruv. He performs ably. Smita Tambe is natural in the role of Nandini. Kumud Mishra lives the role of Robin and underplays the character beautifully. Shubhrajyoti Barat is very effective as Jayant. Pawan Singh (as Hassan) and Bhushan Vikas (as Shinde) lend excellent support. Annapurna Bhairi (as Jayant’s wife), Ahsaas Channa (as Shruti), Ila Bhate (as Nirmala), Vedant Muchandi (as Amrit), Kannan Arunachalam (as Rangarajan), Sandesh Kulkarni (as Arif), Siddharth Chanda (as Digant), Anil Khopkar (as Ajit), Ravi Mahashabde (as Jayesh), Jayahind Kumar (as the truck driver), Yagya Saxena (as Chinmay), Shubham Rawat (as Digant’s friend), Ravin Makhija (as Bhushan) and the others lend the necessary support.
Atanu Mukherjee’s direction is okay. However, it doesn’t really add much to the script in that it is unable to camouflage the shortcomings of the script. Amit Trivedi’s music is fair. Sidhant Mago’s lyrics are quite nice. Anjo John’s background music is okay. Pooja Gupte’s camerawork is alright. Prashant Bidkar’s sets are ordinary. Sanglap Bhowmik’s editing is loose.
On the whole, Rukh is so dull, dry and dreary that it will go largely unno ticed at the box-office.