Masand's verdict: Metro

THUMBS UP: Metro engages from the word go because it finds humour in everyday life.

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Cast: Shilpa Shetty, Irrfan Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kangana Ranaut, Shiney Ahuja, Dharmendra, Nafisa Ali, Sharman Joshi

Direction: Anurag Basu

Easily one of the best films of the year so far, director Anurag Basu's Metro is centred around nine-odd people in Mumbai, who're looking for love and a sense of belonging in the busy, crowded city of Mumbai.

Interestingly, all our nine protagonists are linked to each other in some way, but that you find out as the film unfolds.

Shilpa Shetty and Kay Kay Menon play a couple who have lost the spark in their marriage, thus searching for love in the arms of others.

Sharman Joshi plays a young man, so eager to climb up the corporate ladder that he's willing to compromise on just about anything. Kangana Ranaut is a young girl involved with a married man in a relationship that can best be described as mutually exploitative.

Konkona Sen Sharma is an almost-30 unmarried girl looking for the perfect groom, while Irrfan Khan just can't wait to be married and have sex. Shiney Ahuja is a struggling actor who falls for a married woman, while Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali play an older couple who rekindle an old romance.

Like every good film, the biggest strength of Anurag Basu's Metro is its tight screenplay. Basu doesn't waste time spoon-feeding his audience by giving us every character's back-story, instead he plunges right into the plot and unravels each character as he goes along – it's a lesson that could have benefited Nikhil Advani's Salaam-e-Ishq considerably.

The other reason Metro engages you from the word go, is because it finds humour in everyday life, in what seems like regular situations. Like the scenes between Konkona and Irrfan mostly, which are easily the film's warmest.

Take that scene in the second half where they're sitting by the sea after a shopping expedition. The manner in which Irrfan reacts when he finds out exactly why Konkona had rejected his proposal, and his subsequent attempt to set her up with a friend of his – it's a classic scene and the actors play it out remarkably.

To get a film with a solid plot that's also technically competent has become increasingly rare in Bollywood, but Metro merges content and form so seamlessly.

Bobby Singh's cinematography complements Basu's narrative, he uses his camera to convey the feeling of solitude, desperation, loneliness and joy that the characters feel in a bustling metro like Mumbai.

More than once you'll spot the obvious Wong Kar-Wai influence in the way shots are constructed – like the post-coitus scenes between Kay Kay and Kangana, both wrapped in their bedsheets against the window of an apartment overlooking the skyline. Or that scene in which Shiney Ahuja and Shilpa Shetty get cosy in a dingy flat with no light but the one reflected from the neon-sign outside. Truth is, although borrowed, these moments are strikingly beautiful.