Sanyukta Iyer (MUMBAI MIRROR; July 1, 2015)

Before Upendra Sidhaye agreed to adapt the screenplay and dialogue of the 2013 Malayalam film Drishyam for Nishikant Kamat's Hindi remake of the same name, he spent days glued to the monitor, watching the original directed by Jeethu Joseph and making notes. Since Upendra does not speak Malayalam, he had to rely on subtitles. A few strenuous lines that had to be translated keeping in mind the cultural references were, "Buddie ullavarkku pathram vayekkanda" translating as "Till you have brains, do not read the newspaper," and "Oru penkutty valarnnu valuthayi kalyanam kazhichu bharyayayi kazhinjaal, avaludae jeevitham veedintae akathannu" which means, "Once a girl is grown up, married, and is a wife, her life is within the house."

"The original script is smashing and the screenplay is so tight that initially I had no intentions of tampering with either. When a writer or a director takes a perfect film and remakes it, adding their own ideas, he generally ruins its feel," points out Upendra, who won the Filmfare Award for Best Screenplay (with co-writer Yogesh Vinayak Joshi) for his debut film, Mumbai Meri Jaan in 2009.

Upendra informs that Nishikant wanted the Kerala-based plot to be transferred to a small town on the border of Maharashtra and Goa. And even though the characters and their primary characteristics were retained from the original, they added a Goan flavour to the film. "The dialogue ranged from Maharashtrian to Christian accents," Upendra explains, adding that the Telugu remake of the film was set in South India and didn't have this twist.

The 34-year-old writer recently made his Marathi film debut as dialogue writer with Avinash Arun's directorial venture Killa. The movie went on to win the Crystal Bear - Best Film Award at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival and the 2015 National Award for Best Marathi Film.

Yet, Upendra credits Drishyam for giving him one of the finest monologues of his career. "This is my favourite part of the film. It is in the second half, delivered by Tabu who plays IG Meera Deshmukh. The lines echo while the visuals are a montage, seesawing between flashbacks and Tabu's face in the present day. As a writer, I believe that an actor who is not comfortable with the culture and premise that the film is set in, can ruin the scene. But Tabu made my dialogues sound better," praises Upendra.

He adds that there is an interesting face off between Ajay Devgn and Tabu in the film's climax, which is equally powerful.

Compared to the Malayalam Drishyam, Upendra has added a lot of humour in the first half of the film to paint a picture of Ajay's happy family. "The original film had a lot of cultural references which I shifted to a Goa-based set-up, making the lines more chirpy," he informs.

The film traces the life of Vijay Salgaonkar, played by Ajay, who runs a cable TV network in a remote village on the Goa-Maharashtra border. He is content with his wife Nandini (Shriya Saran) and his two daughters, until a bizarre turn of events leads to a cop, played by Tabu, setting out on a hunt for her missing son, with the Salgaonkar family being the prime suspect.

Even though the film revolves around Ajay and Tabu, Upendra insists Kamlesh Sawant as Inspector Gaitonde also has a significant role with some of the film's most powerful lines. "This is a role that will not be lost in translation," he laughs.