The story of ‘Hepahor Enajori’ explores the consequences of impulsiveness and lack of foresight through the journey of Jyoti, a reckless young man oblivious to the impact of his actions. Losing his mother very early on in his life, Jyoti’s impulsive streak led him to abandon his family. A heated argument with his father, after the death of his mother, fuelled his dislike for staying back as he went for higher studies abroad rejecting even financial support from home. This decision rippled through his family, hindering his elder brother’s artistic dreams and causing a love life breakdown.
Many years later, Jyoti’s father’s illness pulls him back to his hometown, Sivasagar, seeking reconnection amidst an emotionally complex family reunion. But Jyoti has not much changed over the years. He is still reckless in his decisions and incautious of his actions and its impact on others. For instance, Jyoti also marries a pregnant young lady abandoned by her boyfriend in a church. But this decision to take on a fatherly role is not to provide an emotional shoulder to the young lady but to save his business.
Meanwhile, back in his home, he reconnects with his sister Sassy and also attempts to mend his elder brother’s broken marriage. The narrative navigates through these tangled relationships, exploring themes of love, redemption, family ties, and the unforeseen consequences of our choices.
And then that’s pretty much it. I’ve already exhausted my words and thoughts to write further about the film in positive terms. It has left such an unsavory emptiness that I simply can’t even if I try to find more to say. It is because, ‘Hepahor Enajori’ is a cinematic yawn-fest, a tale spun a thousand times before, and something more suited for the TV serial format than a theatrically released movie.
The story, if you can’t already sense it, is neither inspiring nor very transformative, and its characters are presented as mere cardboard cut-outs ripped from the bargain bin of old Bollywood rom-coms. I can already imagine Anupam Kher or Kader Khan in the role of Jyoti’s father.
Only the music videos of the film manage to spark a flicker of life, their vibrant visuals against the scenic beauty of Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland offering the film’s sole saving grace. Director-cum-lead actor, Kuber Raj Bordoloi in the role of Jyoti is good but only when he is serious. When he attempts ‘cute’, it ends up inducing an acute case of the cringes. In terms of his look, couldn’t help but imagine Girish Kumar Taurani from ‘Ramaiya Vastavaiya’.
None of the other performances in the film are worth writing about because characters conveniently keep appearing and disappearing in the film. Jyoti’s wife, introduced as a plot device to save his business, vanishes for a sizeable chunk of the movie, leaving viewers wondering about her role and fate.
And the runtime! Three hours and fifteen minutes of bloated storytelling! It’s as if director Bordoloi forgot the sacred art of film editing, letting scenes meander like lost tourists, dialogues droning on like that friend you desperately want to escape but who just. won’t. stop. talking. There is a church wedding scene with actor Bibhuti Bhushan Hazarika as the father, in the first few minutes of the film, that grinds on so long, you’ll find yourself silently pleading for it to end.
Produced under the banner of Kuber Raj Ciné Productions, the film suffers from excessively long monologues that drag on long after their point has been made. Simple ideas that could be communicated in a minute stretch for five, and the characters often blather unnecessarily when a visual or silent moment would suffice.
At its core, the story had potential to appeal to the new generation who thrives on foreign language content from Netflix and Amazon Prime, but in the end its dull storytelling, over long presentation and bloated dialogues weighs it down, making a much tighter one-and-a-half-hour cut more preferable and easier to sit through. In short, ‘Hepahor Enajori’ is a tedious journey in the form of a film you’ll wish you could skip entirely.
Released on December 29, 2023 across 17 cinema halls in Assam, ‘Hepahor Enajori’ is the last Assamese release of 2023 and I will categorically place it along the likes of movies like Narayan Seal’s ‘Veer’ and Rudrajit Mazumder’s ‘Eti Nakhyatra’. If you’ve watched the mentioned films, you’ll get what I mean and for others – let’s just move on! The cast of ‘Hepahor Enajori’ includes Kuber Raj Bordoloi, Bibhuti Bhushan Hazarika, Adrita Bhattacharya, Jayanta Bez, Helina Daimary, Sanjay Khargharia, and Rimcy Theenseen. Veteran actress of Assam Bidya Rao also appears in a cameo role.
Trailer of the film:
