It was with Suresh Triveni’s Tumhari Sulu back in 2017 that Vidya Balan got her groove back after delivering 7 back to back flops.  

She reunites with the filmmaker for Jalsa and the result is another intriguing film that gives Vidya an opportunity to display a slightly darker side. 

The film is about a celebrated journalist Maya Menon (Vidya Balan) who accidentally runs over a teenage girl in the middle of the night. Instead of helping the gravely injured girl to the hospital, she decides to run away. In a twist of turns, the girl who met with an accident is the daughter of Maya’s cook Rukshana (Shefali Shah), who is like her family and takes good care of her son, who is a special child. 

The film then delves deep into human conflicts and will force you to question what is right and what is wrong. 

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Suresh Triveni is an interesting filmmaker who proves with Jalsa that he can handle diverse genres with ease. While Tumhari Sulu was light-hearted, Jalsa is a complex tale of human conflicts that unfold in a slow-burning manner letting the audience feel the heat its characters are going through. 

I liked how he used background scores in certain scenes muting the dialogues leaving it to the audience’s imagination. That way, the scenes left an even bigger impact. 

The screenplay of the film is character-driven rather than being story-driven and that isn't something that caters to everyone.

The cinematography sets the mood of the film quite well. The VFX towards the end is questionable and almost ruins a highly important and dark sequence. 

The editing could’ve been better as even at just 2-hours and 6-minutes, the film feels around 20 minutes too long. 

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Vidya Balan plays a grey character and nails it. Watch out for the scene when, after the accident, she gets out of the car in her apartment’s parking lot. Simply brilliant. 

Similarly, Shefali Shah too plays a character unlike she has portrayed in the past. The character is vulnerable yet strong and the actress displays with understated ease. The sequence towards the end will stay with you. 

All the other actors in the film in supporting roles have been perfectly cast with special mention to Srikant Yadav who plays Constable More and Surya Kasibhatla who plays Maya’s son. 

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Overall, Jalsa makes for an intriguing watch if you are looking for complex characters delivering solid performances and don’t mind slow-burners.

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