Raincoat

credits. There are no "Starring" or "Featuring" mentions. It says Players. Ajay Devgan, Aishwarya Rai. Like a theatre play. And right there, before a single scene has played, you understand that this film is going to feel different. Even though it was made in 2004, it carries the soul of a classic. That is not an accident. Director Rituparno Ghosh was a celebrated Bengali filmmaker making his first Hindi film, and he brought every bit of his theatre-rooted, art-house sensibility with him. Then the background music comes in. The song is called Mathura Nagarpati, written by Ghosh himself and sung by Shubha Mudgal. You may not understand the words at first, but it does something to you. It addresses Lord Krishna as the king of Mathura, asking him why he wants to leave his prosperous kingdom to go back to Gokul, to his lost love Radha. That is the entire film in one song. A man leaving his life behind to go back to someone he can never truly have. The old classic songs woven through the film, like Sau Saal Pehle Mujhe Tumse Pyaar Tha, are also beautifully chosen and feel completely at home here. From the very first frame, Raincoat feels melancholic. Not in a dramatic, loud Bollywood way. Just quietly, deeply sad. You meet Manu, a man who has clearly known better days and carries a past love that still weighs on him. There is a scene early on where Manu pulls out a packet of gutka from his wallet, and if you are watching this film today, yes, it will remind you of a meme. But hold that thought, because later you realise what that scene is actually telling you about the state of his life. It is one of the most quietly devastating details in the film. Ajay Devgan made this film under his own production banner, Ajay Devgan Films, at a time when this kind of small, quiet, passion-driven cinema was a real commercial risk. You can feel that love for the craft on screen. This was not a project made for the box office. This was a labour of love. Then Aishwarya enters, and honestly, whatever you write about her it will feel like less. She just lights up the screen and immediately fills every corner of it. She plays Neeru, a woman who appears to be doing fine on the surface but is carrying a lot underneath, and she plays that innocence and quiet pain with such naturalism that you are completely in awe. What makes both performances beautiful is how they mirror each other. Both Manu and Neeru are hiding the truth about their lives from each other. Both are lying, but lying out of something that feels closer to love and pride than deception. The film is actually inspired by O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, where two people make sacrifices for each other without the other knowing. Here, Ghosh has moved that story to the monsoon streets of Kolkata, and it works perfectly. Watching two people try to protect each other while quietly falling apart is far more heartbreaking than any loud emotional scene could ever be. When Manu and Neeru meet for the first time in the rain in this film, you feel it immediately. These are two people who have accepted their fate but still care deeply for each other, maybe even still long for each other. There is jealousy there too, but there is also hope in Neeru's eyes, even when you as the audience are beginning to sense the truth she is hiding. Aishwarya carries all of that at the same time without saying much, and it is something else. The aesthetics of Raincoat are one of its quiet strengths. Neeru's house has a Bengali old-world texture to it, dark walls, weathered spaces, a heaviness in the air that feels like Kolkata on a rainy afternoon. The rain here is not just a backdrop. It is almost a character, always present, always reminding you of the mood. One thing worth knowing: the flashback scenes are noticeably more colourful and warm compared to the dark, muted tones of the present-day portions of the film. Ghosh did this deliberately. The past is brighter because it holds the hope and warmth that the present no longer has. If the flashbacks feel slightly less engaging on first watch, that contrast is the point, and it might hit differently on a rewatch. The second half is where the film gets under your skin completely. Annu Kapoor appears as the landlord and without any fuss, drops truth after truth about Neeru's actual life. Every word lands like a small blow. And then there is the moment with Ajay Devgan, a bathroom breakdown scene where Manu begins to piece together the reality of how Neeru has actually been living. No big monologue, no dramatic music. Just Ajay Devgan and his eyes, doing all the work. That restraint is what makes it one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the film. You sit there and wonder, now that he knows, what will Manu do next? Towards the end, Aishwarya might just make you shed a tear. Not because the film is manipulating you into it. But because by that point, you have spent enough time with these two people to feel what they feel. Raincoat failed at the box office when it released. It went on to win the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi. Some films are just built that way. They are not for the opening weekend. They are for a rainy evening when you want cinema to feel like something real. This is one of those films, and somewhere by the end of it, it will leave you quietly broken.