Haseen Dilruba begins with the credit story, screen play and dialogues by Kanika Dhillon, which gives you a hint of things to come. She immerses us into purposefully off-kilter, usually small town worlds, which are further disrupted by ferocious women who refuse to live within the Lakshman Rekha, prescribed by patriarchy and society. Rani, the Haseen Dilruba of the title, is a narcissistic middle-class Delhi girl with masters in Hindi literature, with a passion for the crime novelist Dinesh. But after a few failed relationships, Rani settles for an arrange marriage with Rishu, a mild-mannered engineer from a small town Jwalapur. Rishu is so awed by her beauty, that he becomes dysfunctional in front of her. After a few sweetly comedic romps with Rishu, Rani declares “KOI JWALA NAHI JALNE WALI HMARE BEECH ME”. Enter the loutish lothario Neel- Rishu’s cousin, a river rafting guide. In one scene he is pumping air into a boat, shirtless, sweaty and glistening in the sun, the absolute embodiment of lust. Haseen Dilruba begins with a murder. The story is then recapped mostly by Rani, the prime suspect, who is telling the investigating police officer what led to this point. But Rani is an unreliable narrator and her telling is colored by her avid reading of crime novels. Haseen Dilruba is genre busting, it’s a murder mystery but also a feverish romance with dollops of comedy bunged in. the film swerves from raging hormones to the raw muddled emotions of two strangers in a marriage to things darker and bloodier. In one scene Rishu breaks down declaring that men like him can never be seen as heroic , his tears captures the anguish of being sweet and kind in the twisted world. Tapsee is also very god as an impulsive selfish woman, who creates a tragic. And Neel is well casted as beefy, casually misogynistic third wheel. But in act three Haseen Dilruba switches tracks, moving into territory that becomes implausible and unconvincing- especially Rishu’s arc. The final explanation of what actually happened in the story borders on the ridiculous. Anything can happen but little feels organic or earned.