The Vvaan Review

The Vvaan Review: A Faith-Heavy Mess That Takes Forever to Reach Its Own Story

Director - Deepak Kumar Mishra

Cast - Sidharth Malhotra, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sunil Grover, Anup Soni, Shweta Tiwari, Maniesh Paul, Durgesh Kumar, Sulabha Arya

Duration – 136 Minutes

Vvaan: The Force of the Forrest opens with the mystery its title promises — a forbidden forest, a supernatural force, a warning against entering after sunset and a mythology surrounding Vvaan Devi. An animated prologue introduces a pregnant Maharani on her deathbed, her husband entering Vvaan blindfolded, a tiger and the forest’s ominous history. The premise is promising, but the animation feels undercooked, with visuals that sometimes have an artificial, almost AI-generated look.

The problems begin when Sidharth Malhotra enters as Rishi. After the ancient prologue, the film abruptly cuts to Mumbai 2026 and a construction site. Rishi encounters a child selling Ganga Jal and refuses to buy it. Moments later, a crane goes out of control, forcing Rishi to protect the same child. A pipe bursts, spraying water onto a Shivling, followed by framed images of Hindu deities being sprinkled with the same water. The sequence practically underlines the coincidence.

That visual language continues throughout. Heightened staging and overt symbolism make Vvaan feel like a supernatural television soap transplanted onto the big screen. The film jumps from mythology to family drama, comedy to vlogging and devotion to horror without smooth transitions. Deepak Kumar Mishra has enough material for an atmospheric folklore thriller, but never establishes a consistent cinematic language. The film frequently feels assembled rather than directed.

The screenplay makes matters worse. Rishi and Mamta, played by Sidharth and Tamannaah Bhatia, are introduced as a married couple without enough time spent establishing their relationship. Their conflict is infertility. They undergo fertility tests, discover IVF is beyond their financial means and begin looking for answers elsewhere. The emotional track could have been a strong human anchor, but it never receives enough weight. Their financial struggle also feels questionable given their comfortable house.

Then comes the first song, Samjho Na, followed by Maniesh Paul as Ved Prakash, or VP Vlogs. He is the film’s biggest breath of fresh air. Maniesh understands the comic energy required and delivers his lines with effortless timing, making even weak jokes land. His reactions bring a liveliness the film lacks. While Sidharth and others struggle with comedy, Maniesh appears completely comfortable and owns every scene he enters.

Meanwhile, the film piles on Chhath Puja, family tensions, land acquisition, a journalist played by Durgesh Kumar, Rishi’s brother played by Anup Soni and a conflict between development and traditional beliefs. The issue is balance. Rishi moves from marriage and infertility to jungle land, Chhath preparations, vlogging and the warning about Vvaan.

The film repeatedly tells us that anyone entering Vvaan after sunset becomes Vvaan Devi’s bhog. Yet it takes an exhausting amount of runtime before the mystery begins. A journalist enters the forest, screams are heard, and Rishi starts questioning the superstition surrounding it. By then, the audience has endured songs, comedy, family conflict and exposition.

Ironically, once the film finally enters Vvaan, there is a story worth telling. Rishi encounters the supernatural force and the mythology expands into a story involving a vardaan, a kavach, lineage and a dark supernatural presence. Instead of letting the mystery breathe, the screenplay keeps explaining. The black saaya, Bhutakko, the Devaanchal connection, the kavach and the family’s supernatural powers eventually become one giant information dump. Sunil Grover gets a serious track within this mythology, but his storyline is also weighed down by exposition.

The biggest structural problem is tonal inconsistency. Vvaan wants to be a folklore mystery, family drama, comedy, social commentary on superstition and devotional film at the same time. Chhath songs, Shiv ji references, Hanuman Chalisa, Vvaan Devi mythology and internet culture coexist, but the film never finds a rhythm that makes them feel natural together. The problem is not faith or religious traditions, but the screenplay’s inability to distinguish faith, ritual, superstition and fictional mythology.

Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia are left carrying material that rarely gives them room to build emotional depth. Their dialogues sound written. Sidharth’s Rishi is supposed to carry the conflict between rationality and belief, but the writing tells us what he is thinking instead of developing his arc through action and emotion. His comic attempts are particularly flat beside Maniesh Paul’s timing. Tamannaah’s Mamta becomes important towards the climax, especially when she stands in the water during the final confrontation, but the emotional payoff feels more obligatory than earned.

The climax brings Rishi’s internal battle with faith to a predictable conclusion. Sunil Grover’s character is defeated, the supernatural conflict is resolved and the fertility storyline gets its expected payoff with Rishi and Mamta finally having a child. There is little surprise because the screenplay explains its mythology long before the characters reach it.

Ultimately, Vvaan: The Force of the Forrest feels like several movies fighting for space inside one film. An ancient folklore mystery is buried under fertility drama, family conflict, land, devotion, comedy and supernatural revenge. Instead of combining these elements into one coherent film, the screenplay keeps adding them.

The opening promises a forbidden forest, an ancient mystery and a supernatural force. What follows is a bloated journey through family drama, infertility, Chhath traditions, land, vlogging, comedy and exposition before the film reaches the world it advertised. For a film that repeatedly warns its characters not to enter Vvaan after sunset, the bigger challenge is getting the audience to stay awake long enough to reach it.

Vvaan: The Force of the Forrest is an overstuffed, tonally confused supernatural thriller that never finds the cinematic identity its premise demands. Maniesh Paul provides some spark, but even he cannot compensate for the weak performances from Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia, whose chemistry and star presence often feel like the most visible effort holding the film together. There is undeniable charm in the two leads, but their performances rarely rise beyond that surface appeal.