The Vvaan Movie Review and Ratings
Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sunil Grover, Maniesh Paul, Shweta Tiwari, Anup Soni
Director: Deepak Kumar Mishra
Where to Watch: In Theaters
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars)
Folklore has had a real moment in Bollywood lately, and the mytho-horror-comedy formula has proven consistently effective at the box office. Bringing local legends and folk beliefs to the screen through a supernatural lens isn’t new—films like Paheli, Stree, Munjya, and Kantara have all built their foundations on exactly that kind of storytelling. Continuing that trend, director Deepak Kumar Mishra brings us The Vvaan: Force of the Forest, drawing on a legend tied to the forest goddess, Van Devi, from a village in Bihar. Here’s how well the film manages to bring that folktale to life on screen.
India has no shortage of stories worth telling—what it sometimes lacks is fresh ways of telling them on the big screen. The Vvaan: Force of the Forest pulls one such tale from Bihar, where the forest goddess, a mysterious jungle, devotion to Chhathi Maiya, and a skeptical modern mindset all collide. The film’s opening does a genuinely good job building intrigue around one central question: what’s actually inside that forest? To its credit, the movie keeps that mystery alive for a good stretch—the problem is that once the answers finally start arriving, some of those mysteries turn out to be a lot less compelling than the buildup promised.
The film and its makers clearly aim high, and it shows in how much they’re willing to throw at the screen—there’s a real sense that if one element doesn’t land, another one might. So virtually every trending element gets folded in somewhere: gods, goddesses, and festivals, from Nandi and Surya Dev to Chhath Puja, all layered in alongside Van Devi herself. At the center of it all is Rishi, a man from the fictional region of Devanchal now settled in Mumbai with his wife, Mamta—a practical, scientifically minded guy the film clearly wants the audience to see themselves in. The idea seems to be that as Rishi’s worldview shifts over the course of the story, so will the audience. Unfortunately, that transformation never quite sticks. The film sets science and faith against each other and ultimately loses its own footing somewhere in the middle.
The Vvaan Movie Review: The Story Plot
The plot follows Rishi (Siddharth Malhotra) and Mamta (Tamannaah Bhatia), a Mumbai-based couple who’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to start a family. During Chhath Puja, the two travel to Rishi’s ancestral village, where his brother and sister-in-law (Anup Soni and Shweta Tiwari) live with their children, accompanied by Rishi’s blogger friend, Ved (Manish Paul). Once there, they discover the village still holds firmly to old beliefs—entering the surrounding forest after sunset is strictly forbidden, something Rishi, ever the skeptic, dismisses as pure superstition.
The plot thickens when Deepak (Sunil Grover), an acquaintance looking to improve the village’s connectivity to the city, tries to clear part of the forest for a new road—a plan the villagers fiercely oppose, believing that disturbing sacred land invites disaster. Rishi, meanwhile, is separately trying to sell off his own land bordering the forest. Caught between the pull of progress and generations of belief, Rishi eventually enters the forest after dark himself and encounters something far beyond anything he expected. What’s actually hiding behind these old beliefs is something you’ll have to watch the film to find out.
The Vvaan Movie Review and Analysis
With Deepak Mishra and Arunabh Kumar—the team behind hits like Panchayat and Gullak—teaming up with Ekta Kapoor here, expectations were naturally high for an engaging, well-balanced horror-comedy. The first half of The Vvaan leans into themes of family, nature, faith, and tradition, and while the film takes its time building atmosphere and establishing its characters, the audience stays reasonably engaged throughout. Being loosely inspired by real events also gives the story a sturdier foundation, and the mystery around why the forest is forbidden after dark keeps genuine curiosity alive. Answers start rolling in during the second half — but that’s exactly where the screenplay starts to lose its grip.
Compared to how smoothly the first half unfolds, the second half feels noticeably more scattered, with the entertainment landing in fits and starts rather than sustained momentum. The production design could have used more attention as well. That said, the director deserves credit for weaving human greed into the broader conflict between progress and superstition—it’s one of the more genuinely interesting layers of the story. Manu Anand’s cinematography does strong work building the forest’s mysterious, atmospheric quality, and Manish Paul and Sulabha Arya bring welcome bursts of comic relief throughout. The VFX work, particularly in sequences involving mystical tigers, bulls, and goddesses clashing with darker forces, lands well in several spots. The Chhath Puja tradition itself, though, doesn’t get quite the depth or attention it probably deserved given how central it is to the story’s premise.
The backstory behind the goddess’s origin, revealed in the climax, feels somewhat forced and never quite integrates as smoothly into the story as it should. That’s ultimately why, despite all the reveals, the climax doesn’t land with the impact it’s clearly aiming for. Overall, the film has a genuinely compelling premise and plenty of interesting ideas to work with, but uneven pacing and a weaker-than-expected climax keep it from being more than just a decent watch. On the music side, despite a crowded roster of composers, tracks like “Samjho Na,” “Thumk Thumk,” and “Chhathi Maiya” turn out well.
The Vvaan movie fits fantasy, horror, thriller, and creature, and its formula. That’s different; nothing fits at the story level; this is a very weak film. Nothing gets so interesting as an audience that it catches your attention. Or entertain you for a while. Because here, anytime, anything can happen. This has nothing to do with direct narrative. For example, Manish Paul’s character, Ved Prakash, has a part in the film. That guy’s in the movie just to get the audience to do anything and get the laughter out. And she fails at that too. Because that man’s level of humor is lower than school kids. There are some very awkward and unfunny scenes between an old village lady and Ved Prakash. They test your patience.
You get to know that the team making a series like ‘Panchayat’ is going to make a film. So obviously that movie raises your expectations. You think you’ll see something you’ve probably never seen before. Or haven’t seen from that perspective. But The Vvaan never seems like that movie. Web series and cinema are indeed two completely different mediums. Sometimes you feel that Deepak Kumar Mishra faced the same problem that Anurag Kashyap faced in ‘Bombay Velvet.’ Maybe he couldn’t handle that budget and scale of movie.
This movie hits so many departments that horribly bad VFX doesn’t even make it to the top 3. First, the Ambishas concept was not treated the way it deserved. An unconvincing story and splintering emerge as the most prominent problems. The third thing is the actors’ performance in the film. You don’t expect anything special from Sidharth Malhotra. And you’re proven right. Because they don’t even deliver something fresh.
Tamanna’s share hasn’t come from child hunger and Chhath Puja. Anup Soni should be careful in choosing his films from now on. Some scenes of Shweta Tiwari and Siddharth sound fine. But that brother-in-law-sister-in-law dynamic also doesn’t come out well. In such a situation, everything rests on the shoulders of the villain. Well, the real villains of this movie are its makers. But Sunil Grover played the role of a cinematic villain. Sunil is a good comedian. As much work as he has done, he has been serious. But here they seem very miscast. His character is never strong enough to leave the film to him.
Characterization also gives you many loopholes. Like, Siddharth’s character has some superhuman powers. Which makes him defeat some unseen powers. But it’s his reincarnation. If that character had superpowers, how did he die in his previous life? The forest goddess’s half-baked backstory tells you. Be it Van Devi or Bhootak, both of them are never shown in complete physical form. Just to tell you, these guys are so powerful. How can I trust something that doesn’t exist anymore? The biggest flaw of this movie is that it never convinces you.
On the acting side, Siddharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia bring a genuinely fresh pairing to the screen, and their chemistry is one of the film’s real highlights. Malhotra plays an educated, rational young man still holding tightly to a thread of inherited faith, and he carries that duality convincingly while looking effortlessly at home on screen. Tamannaah Bhatia anchors much of the story’s emotional core through her natural, understated performance. Sunil Grover fully commits to his antagonist role, while Anup Soni and Shweta Tiwari both do justice to their parts. Manish Paul provides reliable comic energy throughout, and the rest of the supporting cast holds its own as well.
The Vvaan Movie Review: The Last Words
The Vvaan is a desi fantasy adventure, which makes the folktale of Bihar, the faith of Chhathi Maiya, and the mysterious forest the basis of its world. The atmosphere, cinematography, and cast of the film make it worth watching. In the second part, the story takes some familiar paths, but the world related to its soil and the scale of the big screen maintain its impact. The path is not equally strong everywhere, but stepping into the world of The Vvaan is definitely an interesting cinematic experience. The Vvaan, in my experience, is one of the worst movies I’ve had in a while. The makers themselves don’t know what they want to do or what they want to say They seem so confused.