Article Updated 21 May, 2005 02:15:38 AM IST   Naina By Prema K. ©2005 Bollyvista.com   'You're Better off Blind!', seems to be the message, loud and clear, in the film. Don't know if this makes sense to you but maybe it will after you hear the story. Actually what story? On a Solar Eclipse day, 5-year-old Naina (Urmila Matondkar) is on an outing with her parents in London. Almost the entire film has been shot in London. The car meets with an accident. Naina's parents are killed on the spot and she turns blind. There are cuts to a hospital scene where a woman in a village gives birth to a stillborn child. The death of Naina's parents breathes life into the child. We wonder what the connection is but the unraveling of the mystery in the last half hour sort of explains it. Twenty years later, Naina undergoes a cornea implant and regains her sight. Considering they are living in London and are wealthy, it makes one wonder why the long wait to have Naina's eyesight restored. Besides the hospital staff in London, and a few shots on the London roads, there is nothing else to indicate that the story is based in London. Naina is overjoyed at being able to see again but her happiness is short-lived when she starts having strange experiences. She starts seeing strange things and people that are not visible to anyone else around. If this was meant to inspire fear then it is a disappointment. She also starts predicting people's deaths. Initially no one takes her seriously but certain incidents force them to. She is almost a neurotic case now and wants to find answers to a lot of questions. Her quest takes her to a remote village in Gujarat where strange things unfold in front of her eyes. She comes back free from all her fears and worries. At least that's what we think! Soon she gets another brainwave regarding a major train accident. She is on the scene of the accident and a glass splinter enters her eye and renders her blind again. This is exactly the way she had turned blind as a kid. So she is back to square one and a much happier person. So all's well that ends well. The film is like a fear ride in an amusement park except for the last half hour when the missing links are put together to bring some sort of sense into the strange happenings. Good cinematography and mercifully no unwanted jarring background music. But as a film it is very disappointing. Now for the performances. Urmila Matondkar is a huge disappointment. She behaves in an abnormal fashion when she is blind as well as during those strange happenings in her life. There is no graph to her character. She looks haunted and psychotic throughout. The psychiatrist, Dr. Samir Patel (Anuj Sawhney) handling her case as well as who develops into her love interest later is good. Kamini Khanna as her grandmother is okay. The rest of the cast is decent. The prospects of this film don't seem too rosy. ** (TWO STARS) *poor; **average; ***good; ****very good; *****excellent   close   Print this Article http://www.bollyvista.com   http://www.bollyvista.com/article/a/29/4892