The Storyteller - Loosely Woven, Well Spun.

The Storyteller

Hindi / Drama

116 mins
Disney+ Hotstar

The Storyteller is based on Satyajit Ray’s short story Golpo Boliye Tarini Khuro.

Tarini Bandopadhyay (Paresh Rawal) is a retired widower. He loves his fish, detests capitalism, and embodies the textbook Bengali of a bygone era. He is a storyteller, famous in his social circles, though often chided by his late wife for never writing his stories down.

Tarini moves to Ahmedabad after responding to an advertisement by Ratan Garodia (Adil Hussain), a Gujarati textile businessman suffering from insomnia, who hopes that a storyteller might help him sleep. This sets up an ironic situation—a storyteller spinning a yarn to put a cotton businessman to sleep!

Tarini does his job well—while Ratan doesn’t always fall asleep, he enjoys Tarini’s company and stories. The two men grow close, and Ratan confides in him about Saraswati, his childhood love, whom he still longs for. So comfortable does Ratan become with Tarini that he even looks the other way when Tarini convinces Manik (Ratan’s aide) to prepare fish in the traditionally vegetarian Gujarati household!

Tarini also befriends Suzy, a librarian at the library he frequents. Meanwhile, Ratan hopes to rekindle his romance with Saraswati, now a widow. However, during one of his conversations with Suzy, Tarini makes a humbling discovery that shakes him to his core. How will he navigate this situation? And does Ratan finally reunite with Saraswati?

Casting a Gujarati actor as a Bengali and an Assamese actor as a Gujarati adds an interesting layer to the film. Actor-director Ananth Mahadevan does a decent job with the unhurried pacing and capturing the nativity of the characters. 

However, while Paresh Rawal and Adil Hussain are undoubtedly competent actors and do a good job here, both seem to lean too hard into their respective stereotypes, which somewhat diminishes the authenticity of their characters. One also wishes the accomplished female actors had more screen time as well. 

All said,  the film remains watchable, but could have been so much more.