Ugly (film)

Director Anurag Kashyap said in an interview that the genesis of Ugly started from his own broken marriage and the relationship with his daughter. He mentioned that his guilt of not spending enough time with her when he was an alcoholic also shaped the film.[4][5] He stated that the first ten minutes of the film stems from his personal experiences.[4] He had been working on its script since 2006.[6] Later, Kashyap met his friend Amit Pathak, who was the head of Special Task Force in Lucknow and talked to him about real life kidnapping cases and how they were tackled.[5] He also explained the whole "logic" of such kidnapping cases and how they function.[5] The shocking thing for Kashyap to know from him was that in eighty five percent cases of kidnapping, there are no ransom calls, and are vendetta based abductions.[4] He later included several real-life incidents in the script like a case of an Indian Administrative Service officer whose wife filed a case of brutality against him.[7]

After the research, Kashyap finished the script and gave it to some people to read who felt that "it was a very dark and intense film".[6] He said: "I knew that I could make it only after I had made a successful film. So Gangs of Wasseypur allowed me the freedom to make this film without sharing the script with anyone. I just told people I wanted to make a kidnapping drama and to trust me."[6] The film's story is told over the course of a week.[8] Kashyap announced Ugly in May 2012.[9]

For casting, Kashyap chose actors who could connect with the characters in the film.[6] He found a lot of parallels between Rahul Bhat's real life and his character in the film and hence gave him the role of a failed actor.[10] The two had previously discussed the project in 2012. To prepare for his role, Bhat started consuming alcohol heavily and deprived himself of sleep to create dark circles around his character's face.[11] Tejaswini Kolhapure, per Kashyap knew "what happens when you make bad choices in life", as her first film choice, Paanch, was never released. She plays the role of an alcoholic mother, for which she actually consumed alcohol while shooting.[12] Ronit Roy was cast in the role of a police inspector.[13]

Vineet Kumar Singh was cast in the role of a casting director.[14] Kashyap had seen Girish Kulkarni in films such as Vihir (2010) and Deool (2011) and wanted to work with him. He met their director Umesh Vinayak Kulkarni in Denmark, who told him that Kulkarni would love to work with him. Afterwards Kashyap came back and called him for Ugly.[10] Surveen Chawla plays the role of a C-grade film actress, who she described as "crass, downmarket C-grade item girl who is ugly on the inside".[15][16] The film has television actor Abir Goswami's last appearance before his death in 2013.[17][18] Siddhanth Kapoor was cast in Ugly before his debut film Shootout at Wadala (2013), since he wanted to work with Kashyap.[19] Alia Bhatt makes a brief appearance in the film.[20]

Kashyap shot the whole film without giving its lead actors any script as he felt the film "required" that.[6] During shoot, he would brief the actors about the scene and let them emote to do their own bit, while the camera was kept rolling.[21] The actors got to know about the film, when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.[5] Kashyap had told Bhat and other cast that he wanted to make this film in 2012. They spent the next two years, talking to each other and getting to know each other.[5] The little girl in the film is named Kali (Hindi for bud), who, according to author Vaiju Naravane, represents "untouched innocence".[21] Anshika Shrivastava, who played the character, was unaware of the story, and Kashyap requested her parents not to show her the film as he felt she was too young for the subject matter.[22] On the day of shooting, Kashyap gave Roy the scene for the day which he refused to read and said: "I told Anurag that now that there was no script, I'll leave the shooting entirely on him."[13] For a sequence, where Bhat had to cry, Kashyap kept talking to him for three hours and he eventually broke down and wept. The camera kept rolling during that period.[6] The film was extensively shot in real locations.[6] While shooting a scene where his character is taken in remand by the police, Singh was slapped over fifty times in real. His hands were cuffed and tied to the roof to represent the actual third degree torture.[23] It was because Kashyap wanted to depict a realistic reconstruction of police methods in India.[21] A scene where both Singh and Bhat talk to the inspector in the police station was improvised, because, Kashyap wanted to show the real "police apathy and the power trip."[10]

Kashyap shot the whole film in the suburbs of Mumbai to create the feeling of constriction. He worked with a new cinematographer, Nikos Andritsakis, who works with Dibakar Banerjee, as he wanted to shoot in the "constricted spaces" of the city.[4][24] They shot most of the scenes in one or two angles.[4] The suburbs were difficult locations to shoot because of the constant crowd hence the team then decided to use hidden cameras to capture most of the original scenes, especially the ones that were shot at Bandra and Lonavala railway station.[25] As a result, the actors did not have the liberty to give as many retakes as they can on a set.[25] Kashyap called it his most "brutally honest" film.[26] Ugly was shot for fourteen hours a day to meet the schedule and was completed in forty days.[25] Kashyap wanted the scene where Siddhant gets the money to be hyper-stylised, and he treated the scene "like an orgasm". He drew similarity of the scene with a man's eagerness to have sex, which is sudden and intense.[4] He recalled the whole shooting an "emotionally exhausting" experience.[6]

Ugly was edited by Aarti Bajaj and the sound mixing was done by the Mumbai-based audio engineer Mandar Kulkarni with assistance from Alok De.[27] Such scenes as a road accident in the film were shot on different places and later merged using visual effects provided by Balakrishna P. Subbiah Nadar.[1][28] The film is jointly produced by Phantom Films and DAR Motion Pictures.[9]

Upon release, Ugly received widespread critical acclaim.[48][51] Film critic Raja Sen called it Kashyap's "finest film", writing: "Ugly is a tale of torment, masterfully woven around the universally urgent trigger of a disappearing minor."[24] Shweta Kaushal, giving the film a positive review, called it "dark, gripping" and a "must watch".[52] Kaushani Banerjee of Deccan Chronicle wrote: "Every frame has a dark undertone and Ugly does not conclude until every possible avenue of audience empathy is explored."[53] Mihir Fadnavis of Firstpost called Ugly, Kashyap's "best film since Black Friday".[54] A review carried by India Today called the film an "eye opener" and "one of the best films of the year".[55] Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV, called it "indescribably better than all the muck that mainstream Bollywood passed off for entertainment this year."[56] Meena Iyer of The Times of India gave a four-out-of-five star rating and said: "It's not for the faint-hearted, but for those who are willing to let the morally decrepit live."[57] Subhash K. Jha in his review mentioned, "You know these characters are played by actors. And that there is a camera recording their activities. But you let yourself believe this is not make-believe."[58] Suprateek Chatterjee from HuffPost gave a positive review to the film and called Kashyap the "antithesis of Sooraj Barjatya".[59] Arunava Chatterjee called Ugly a "pathbreaking crime fiction" and "one of Kashyap's best so far."[60] Sonia Chopra of Sify gave a positive response and wrote: "Kashyap gives us a film that represents a disturbing reflection of life."[61]

Contrary to the positive responses, a review from Bollywood Hungama wrote, "Watch it if you are an Anurag Kashyap fan, else avoid!".[62] Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express giving the film a two-star-out-of five rating, wrote: "In all the to-ing and fro-ing, it starts feeling too long, and too much, without the requisite emotional pay-off."[63] Deepanjana Pal wrote in her review, "Ugly is a disappointment, not just because it's a whodunit that sinks like a badly-made souffle but also because we expect better and more of Kashyap."[64]

Among overseas reviewers, Lee Marshall of Screen International called the film a "lazy kidnap caper" and felt the story was "too flabby".[65] Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter mentioned in her review that Ugly is "taut, angry genre film" but felt the film was comparatively weaker than Kashyap's earlier film, Gangs of Wasseypur (2012).[66] Maggie Lee from Variety gave a positive response and wrote :"[..] the grittily stylized film boasts a scattershot narrative that frustrates as much as it illuminates."[1]

Ugly was the last release of 2014 in India.[67] It received a low occupancy and earned ₹4 million (US$56,000) on its opening day, which was mainly attributed to the limited release and small scale promotion.[3][68] The film was expected to be pulled off from screens but positive critical reception helped in the increase of numbers at the box-office. It collected ₹16.5 million (US$230,000) over the weekend.[69] It also benefited from the limited print release which meant that there won't be much reduction in print count in the next weeks.[69] The film was also released in France and Belgium, where it grossed 80,000 euros in its first week.[48]

After the end of the first week of its theatrical release, Ugly collected ₹33.4 million (US$470,000) at the box office.[3] According to Rentrak, a global media measurement company, the film collected a total of ₹62.3 million (US$870,000) after the end of its theatrical run.[3] It proved to be a box office success, after earning more than its production cost of ₹45 million (US$630,000).[2]