Iti Mrinalini
Cast: Aparna Sen, Konkana Sen Sharma, Rajat Kapoor and Koushik Sen.
Director: Aparna Sen
Rating: ***
 
Aparna Sen, whose acting debut at age 16 in Satyajit Ray’s Teen Kanya (Thee Daughters) led,  though after a long time, to her first directorial venture, 36 Chowringhee Lane, still remains a fine performer. Her latest work, Iti Mrinalini (The Unfinished Letter), which she has helmed as well, is reportedly autobiographical that tells the story of  aging actress Mrinalini Mitra (Sen), hounded by the media and shabbily treated by the man in her life, Siddhartha Sarkar (Rajat Kapoor). Married with a couple of children, Sarkar’s relationship with Mitra traverses the usual path that many extra-marital affairs tend to do. Years later, she contemplates suicide and begins to pen her last letter.

Konkana Sen Sharma, as the young Mitra, enjoys considerable screen time in a role that is emotionally more challenging than Sen’s, who plays the older Mitra. Sharma’s natural ease with which she conveys her character’s pain and turmoil, and Sen’s remarkably understated fortitude are some of the scoring points of the film that premiered at the Mumbai Film Festival. One of Sen’s better movies after 36 Chowringhee Lane and The Japanese Wife, her latest work is wonderfully mounted as well.

However, a sketchy story (credited to Sen and Ranjan Ghosh) and some miscasting may not exactly endear it to the arthouse crowd. Koushik Sen as Chintan Nair seems terribly ill at ease essaying a man from Kerala, and the unconvincing physical resemblance between Sen and Sharma, despite they being mother and daughter off screen, does not help either. But Sen’s diehard fans may just about overlook these.