Tenida And Company review: The second half salvages Kanchan Mullick and Gaurav Chakrabarty’s comedy drama

2.5/5

Story: Based on Narayan Gangopadhyay’s Jhau Bungalo-r Rohoshyo, Tenida And Company explored the dynamics of Tenida, Pyala, Habul, and Kyabla. In the film, the characters are a little more grown-up than their literary reference. Tenida (Kanchan Mullick) and his company – Pyala, Habul, and Kyabla (Gaurav Chakrabarty) – decide to go to Darjeeling for winter vacation. Kyabla is a scholar. He follows the path of scientist Satkori Santra (Sabyasachi Chakrabarty) in his research work. Meanwhile, a few people follow Tenida and company on their vacation. To know what happens there you will have to watch the film. 

Review: Tenida And Company is a one-time watch, especially for children during summer vacation. It has comedy and suspense to entertain the little viewers. However, how much will it be able to convince the adults is a question. 

The main problem is the first half of the film. It takes a rather boring path to lead the audience to the story. After the excitement of the cricket match, which you must have seen in the trailer, the flow becomes boring simply because it is not tightly scripted. The dialogues are sloppy. The film uses a lot of phrases and expressions from the original book. The problem is since the story has been contemporised, such phrases sound out of place. The emotional bromance between Tenida and Kyabla beside the hilly river and the song that follows is cringy. 

The film picks up in the second half when the real suspense begins. Suspense is Sayantan Ghosal’s forte and he does justice to it almost every time. The story becomes gripping with the entry of Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Mithu Chakrabarty, Ridhima Ghosh, and the haunting Jhau Bungalow. There are overdoses of thrills and drama often goes high octane, but it is engaging to watch. 

Kanchan is almost the obvious choice as Tenida. He flares his comedy streaks and most of the time leaves viewers in splits. Kyabla is as important as Tenida in this film and Gaurav is very convincing. However, as mentioned earlier, their bromance is too melodramatic to handle. Soumendra Bhattacharya and Sourav Saha as Pyala and Habul are fitting but their chemistry with Tenida and Kyabla does not work. The team’s interactions, especially in the first half, look half-hearted and not convincing.  

Sabyasachi steals the show right from the first scene. Despite the predictability of the story (most of the viewers might have read it), his performance is riveting. Mithu plays little part in the scheme of things. Ridhima does a good job. Paran Bandyopadhyay is criminally under-utilised.

Verdict: Tenida And Company could have been a riveting film if the first half was tightly written and edited. As it seems, the makers have tried to make everybody (those who read Tenida and those who did not) happy. They take forever to build steam in the film and finally, that becomes redundant. However, it is still worth a watch this summer.