The trailer of Neeyat, a murder mystery starring Vidya Balan as a detective, was released on Thursday. Directed by Anu Menon, the classic whodunit seems like straight out of an Agatha Christie novel. And from recent memory, it reminds one of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out (2019).A ri ch man invites his entire family for his birthday dinner at an isolated, old mansion. But by the end of the night, he’s found dead. The detective investigating the case claims it’s a murder, instead of the suspected suicide. She discovers how every member of the family is a suspect with a valid motive. But who’s really the killer?
Replace Daniel Craig with Vidya Balan, the late Christopher Plummer with Ram Kapoor, and the Knives Out ensemble with the rest of the cast here. There’s also a late entrant here, like Chris Evans in Knives Out. The only key Knives Out character missing, at least in the trailer, is the caretaker played by Ana de Armas. And unlike Knives Out, the patriarch of the family is not found dead in the house, but is allegedly thrown off a cliff near his mansion.
Neeyat isn’t the first time Vidya will be seen as a detective. She played a desi detective in Bobby Jasoos (2014), set in Hyderabad, which failed at the box office. But we’ve often seen Vidya investigate on screen in different avatars, from Sujoy Ghosh’s 2012 cult film Kahaani, Ribhu Dasgupta’s Te3n (2014), or most recently, Amit V Masurkar’s 2021 forest thriller Sherni.
Neeyat will mark Vidya Balan’s long-awaited return to the cinemas after four years. Her last theatrical release was Jagan Shakti’s 2019 sci-fi ensemble Mission Mangal. Her last solo theatrical outing, however, was Suresh Triveni’s 2017 blockbuster Tumhari Sulu.