'Neeyat' Vidya Balan's next is a Murder mysetry

Vidya Balan stuns as a detective in the intriguing murder mystery film Neeyat, reminiscent of Agatha Christie and Knives Out
Neeyat features an isolated mansion, a suspicious death, and a web of family secrets, with every member a suspect
Vidya Balan's return to cinemas after four years, Neeyat adds to her repertoire of investigative roles alongside previous films like Kahaani and Sherni

The trailer of Neeyat, a murder mystery starring Vidya Balan as a detective, was released on Thursday. Directed by Anu Menon, the classic whore looks straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. And from recent memory, it brings to mind Rian Johnson's Knives Out (2019).

A rich man invites his entire family to an isolated old mansion for a birthday dinner. But at the end of the night he is found dead. The detective investigating the case says it's a murder, not a suspected suicide. He discovers that every member of the family is a suspect with a valid motive. But who really is the killer?

Knives Out, much?
Replace Daniel Craig with Vidya Balan, the late Christopher Plummer with Ram Kapoor, and the Knives Out ensemble with the rest of the cast here. There's also a late entrant, like Chris Evans in Knives Out. The only key character in Knives Out that is missing, at least in the trailer, is the administrator played by Ana de Armas. And unlike Knives Out, the patriarch of the family is not found dead in the house, but is supposedly thrown from a cliff near his mansion.

Neeyat is not the first time Vidya will be seen as a detective. She played a desi detective in Bobby Jasoos (2014), set in Hyderabad, which failed at the box office. But we have often seen Vidya investigating on screen in various avatars, from Sujoy Ghosh's 2012 cult film Kahaani, Ribhu Dasgupta's Te3n (2014) or most recently Amit V Masurkar's 2021 forest thriller Sherni.

Neeyat will mark Vidya Balan's long-awaited return to cinemas after four years. Her last theatrical release was the 2019 sci-fi ensemble Jagan Shakti Mission Mangal. However, her last solo theatrical outing was Suresh Triveni's 2017 blockbuster Tumhari Sulu.

As of 2019, Vidya has only been seen in films that premiered directly on Prime Video India, including Anu Menon's Shakuntala Devi (2020), Sherni and most recently Suresh Triveni's Jalsa last year. Vidya will soon be seen in Lovers, a romantic comedy that also stars Pratik Gandhi, Ileana D'Cruz and Sendhil Ramamurthy.

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