404

Throw in a movie on an idle Monday afternoon, and my day seems bright. Add to it a non-linear psychological thriller vein, which induces thought and music that keeps playing in your head long after you’ve left the theatre, and I get the worth of every penny spent.

404 is a title that gives away nothing of what this film may be. You soon discover that it is a room number in the hostel of a medical college with rather sparse students and professors. The first year medical students seem to be an enthusiastic bunch out which Abhimanyu stands out as being the ‘brave one’ who opts to stay in room no. 404. Brave, not only because he goes to the dean to convince him to open up the room that has been locked up for 3 years but also because he wants to live in it even though the previous occupant and student has committed suicide.

Aniruddh, a famous professor who is doing a thesis on the the ‘paranormal’ and a visiting faculty at the college, is impressed with Abhimanyu’s rationality and encourages him to stay in the room and dispel the fear surrounding it. Enter the ‘seniors’ of the college, who decide to take ragging to a whole other level with Abhimanyu, making him believe that he lives with the spirit of the now-dead student in the form of his roommate. What follows Abhimanyu’s struggle to keep a balance between illusion and reality, to break out of a trap that he is now entangled in.

404 deals with an increasingly interesting subject of bi-polar disorder which only really takes shape in the second half of the film. Add to that, interesting lighting and performances by the actors with a suitably haunting background score, it more than makes up for it’s fairly unconvincing first half with an exciting twist in the end.