Netflix’s ‘Once Again’ Is a Love Letter to Shefali Shah

The atmospheric film could have benefitted from a tighter plot.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

(Photo Courtesy: Netflix)

For a film that relies heavily on telephonic conversation to build the chemistry between its leads, Once Again directed by Kanwal Sethi soars in its moments of silence that heave with small intimacies. It’s in these moments that the camera evocatively explores fleeting emotions conveyed by Shefali Shah, barely visible to the eyes yet deeply felt. She’s the beating heart of this film which could have benefitted from a tighter plot.

Ritesh Batra has almost cemented his credentials as the contemporary master storyteller, unpacking nuances of middle-age romance with films like The Lunchbox and Our Souls at Night. With these precedents, Once Again is like deja vu that shares the same connective tissue. It may not be formulaic but the premise follows a familiar template of mature romance.

As the name suggests, Once Again is all about two lonely souls in the city finding love anew. Tara played by Shefali Shah, the widowed owner of a no-frills Mangalorean restaurant strikes a friendship with a divorced actor (Neeraj Kabi), who has subscribed to her tiffin service, over a chance phone call.

Unlike The Lunchbox, here we don’t see how they stumble upon each other. While the former ends when they meet, Once Again is wrenched out of its indulgence with a dash of agreeable drama when the leads take their relationship beyond the phone. The source of conflict is predictably their adult children but by the time it kicks in, the film assumes a lumbering quality. One also wonders why they don’t speak to each other on cell phones instead of their landlines, since the setting is contemporary. 

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.(Photo Courtesy: Netflix)

Somewhere as the film proceeds languorously, I found myself more interested in the way the camera romances Shefali Shah than Amar and Tara’s dalliance. Props to Eeshit Narain who was also the DOP for a film in a similar vein - Qarib Qarib Singlle. The cinematography complemented by Talvin Singh’s sublime music makes the film atmospheric. 

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

While the brooding Neeraj Kabi brings his A-game to the film, it’s his character creaking with cliches that lets him down - the commitment-phobic artist. He’s almost like an older version of characters played by Ranbir Kapoor - a persistent man-child who is terrified of intimacy when it gets too real and is unwittingly looking for self-actualisation in a woman. It’s Ajitpal Singh’s dialogue that keeps things interesting and ably unravels his self-obsessive streak. Neeraj Kabi’s command over his craft makes some clunky moments convincing. The camaraderie he shares with his driver, Ashok out of loneliness, is like a subdued version of the Sartaj-Katekar bond (Sacred Games).

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.(Photo Courtesy: Netflix)

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.(Photo Courtesy: Netflix)

The supporting cast Rasika Duggal, Priyanshu Painyuli (Bhavesh Joshi Superhero) ably prop the proceedings up but remain largely in the background. You want to see more of them.

Once Again comes into its own in the stolen moments that Shefali Shah’s Tara steers - be it the way she inhabits the unsophisticated kitchen of her homespun restaurant replete with a clay oven and picks up the landline at the end of the work day with a cup of chai in hand, the way she crushes coriander and finds its whiff intoxicating, or the way she feigns incomprehension when her kids accidentally intrude on her personal life. The film is also interspersed with some exquisite food shots without conquering the narrative. One of the best scenes of the film involves her forgetting to buy ghee and it’s so much more than a food reference - it unriddles her claustrophobia.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

A still from Netflix’s Once Again.

The way the camera tenderly caresses her in the film, the subtlest shifts in her character’s emotions become discernible.

Her face personifies an agreeable shade of control and abandon. She’s self-made and self-possessed. She is on the verge of tentatively embracing her desires and yet struggling to reconcile with her guilt about loving someone other than her husband, long after her spouse is dead. She can’t be rushed but once she makes up her mind, she can move mountains.

Though the film falters in terms of the story, watch it for Shefali Shah, some moments of tenderness of an evolved romance and the mood.