Rawkto Rawhoshyo review: More of a celebration of lead character than a thriller

If you are planning on watching Soukarya Ghoshal’s recent film Rawkto Rawhoshyo with the expectation of feasting your eyes on an edgy thriller, be forewarned: the film is about the emotional yet courageous journey of the protagonist, played by Koel Mallick, with a few twists. With this film, Ghoshal has taken a leap from his food fantasy Rainbow Jelly in terms of content.

Rawkto Rawhoshyo is the latest addition to the list of Mallick’s films that celebrate femininity in different spheres of life. Mallick plays RJ Swarnaja, who always goes to extra mile to make others happy or at least share their grief. Swarnaja has her own deep-rooted pain but chooses to lead a positive life with a smile on her face.

As the film takes time to build her character, taking cues from her childhood, the audience might be pushed to expect some clues with regard to Swarnaja’s prospective journey. They are right there in her scenes with her family physician Dr Burman (Shantilal Mukherjee) and her fellow yoga practitioner Shammo (Chandan Roy Sanyal) but their significance will be revealed much later.

You will also meet Parag (Shreeansh Sarkar), a boy in the orphanage, who is often forbidden from roughhousing because of his rare blood type. Interestingly, Swarnaja shares his blood group and to find out the connection between the two, the audience needs to take a trip five back years to an incident that changed the woman’s life.

The trailer offered glimpses of Swarnaja’s struggle as a single mother and Ghoshal has indeed come up with some fresh ideas in incorporating her journey into a plot involving an international racket. But among the weak points of the film is the fact that the revelation of the racket doesn’t surprise with its treatment. Swarnaja's connecting the dots while identifying the wrongdoers fails to excite too. The relationship between the criminals and a special ayurvedic brand of Kerala, on which they depend heavily, is not established either.

Rawkto Rawhoshyo rather celebrates Swarnaja’s compassion, undaunted spirit and intelligence. She doesn’t bat an eyelid when it comes to risking her career as well as her well-being while performing a giant humanitarian task; at the same time, she demonstrates the ability to rise above emotional attachment and lead her professional life with ease too. Time and again, she refuses to give up in the face of adversity.

Mallick gets into the skin of Swarnaja and is undoubtedly the soul of the film. Her character is bold as well as hopelessly romantic. We often do not see such strong women taking an interest in astrology, but Swarnaja obsesses over horoscopes and sun signs for no particular result. However, in life, she believes in making her own destiny.

Rwitobroto Mukherjee well serves as the narrator but his performance as Swarnaja’s brother seems a little out of place and doesn’t appear to be well-written either.

Sanyal is known for his natural acting but perhaps his character, as well as to the plot, could have been better fleshed out.

Cinematographer Aalok Maity and editor Arghyakamal Mitra have succeeded in keeping the audience engaged while Nabarun Bose’s background score holds their attention during dull moments.

The focus of Rawkto Rawhoshyo is Mallick’s character rather than the overall story The film is a strictly one-time watch. One doubts whether the audience can relate to Swarnaja but it will definitely be inspired by certain facets of hers.

Watch the trailer and let us know if you are keen on watching the film.