Miss Lovely is clearly not for everybody. Plot logic in this film is choppy, sometimes disjointed, sometimes told only in parts. Sensation and twisted psychology matter more than linear storytelling. Mood, atmosphere and sound design fill in he remaining details that the story doesn't tell you. Now, if you are still interested, read on
For me, personally, Miss Lovely is a meticulously crafted aesthetic and political vision, employing a variety of forms/tropes (of artifice) to critique the mode of commercial Indian cinema. If you think about it – it has all the aspects of a classical Bollywood movie (2 brothers, a girl in between them, a love triangle, murder, conspiracy, betrayal, paranoia and a Nazia Hassan song!) – AND YET, it as far from a Bollywood film as you can be. Because, I believe it is a deconstruction of Bollywood, it takes all the elements and rebuilds them from the ground up. It offers another way to make an Indian film – and I'm all the more excited for it. It says (to me) – Indian film doesn't need to be "parallel" (read: village exploitation stories), it can still take all that is familiar and make something totally new and original with it. Much has been written on how great Nawaz is in this film – but that is boring. Let's talk about the other actors. Anil George, for me, was far far better than Nawaz. Playing the heavy, brooding older brother Vicky Duggal, George has screen presence like few actors on Indian screens. He's phenomenally real. Often he doesn't even seem aware of the camera. Next level performance, in my humble opinion. Niharika Singh as Pinky is just terrific as well. A beautifully understated almost non-performance (which, as anyone knows, is still a PERFORMANCE). A distinctive quality of this beautiful, doll-like actress is that no matter how expressive she is, there always seems to be something else going on which we sense but can't know about. The soundtrack and sound design is just terrific – I'm not sure who has scored the film but it creates a dread and tension which has you scouring the corners of the frame for the source of the menace. All in all, not for everyone – but for those who want something new, this is deeply satisfying.