Haseen Dillruba director says he didn’t want to ‘titillate’, wanted to stay true to ‘sensuality’ of Taapsee’s character

Haseen Dillruba director Vinil Mathew spoke about the ‘thin line’ between sensuality and vulgarity, and whether or not it was a challenge to not cross it while making the film. Haseen Dillruba, starring Taapsee Pannu, Vikrant Massey, and Harshvardhan Rane, is due out on Netflix today.

In an interview, Vinil Mathew was asked if he was ever tempted to step into ‘Bhatt’ territory while making the film, which has been designed as a homage to Hindi pulp thrillers.

He told Bollywood Spy in Hindi, “To be honest, that was never our perspective. The film has been written by a woman, Kanika Dhillon, and there’s a strong female imprint on the script. Our intention was always to show her sensuality, because that is part of the character. I wanted to be true to the character. We never thought of making it vulgar to attract an audience. We only wanted to do what was right for the character.”

He continued, “If you watch the film, it’s made in a very organic manner. If we’d inserted something artificial in the film, it would’ve stuck out. Whatever sensuality there is in the film, depends on the character’s requirement. The objective was never to titillate the audience, it was to be true to the character.”

Haseen Dillruba tells the story of Rani, played by Taapsee Pannu, a woman from Delhi who marries a small-town man named Rishu, played by Vikrant Massey. Their marriage of compromise is further strained when Rishu’s cousin, Neel, played by Harshvardhan Rane, enters the picture.

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Taapsee in an earlier interview had said that Vikrant and Harshvardhan were intimidated by the intimate scenes in the film, and that she took it upon herself to make them comfortable.