Balaji Mohan’s Hindi directorial debut, Nayyi Navelli, features Yami Gautam single-handedly wrestling a sprawling CGI apocalypse while the rest of the film sleepwalks through an identity crisis.
Quick Vibes
Genre: Horror comedy
Vibes: Chaotic
Film Credits
Cast: Yami Gautam, Addinath Kothare, Anurag Thakur, Sunita Rajwar, Mita Vishisht, Pratiek Pachori, Sonal Jha, Suneel Sinha, Sushmita Mukherjee, Aaditya Kulshrestha
Director: Balaji Mohan
Writers: Divy Nidhi Sharma, Himanshu Sharma
Story
A wedding in Meerut usually means loud music and chaotic family drama, but Nayyi Navelli kicks things off with a different note. While everyone is busy celebrating, Raja Awasthi (Addinath Kothare) is losing his mind because his wife, Mohini (Yami Gautam), has completely vanished. Meanwhile, her sharp-eyed brother-in-law, Bantu (Anurag Thakur) and his friend tracks her down deep into a shadowy forest where she is knee-deep in a creepy ritual. With a priest’s help, they drag her back home and lock her up in a room before anyone else catches wind of it.
The tension spikes when Bantu calls an emergency family meeting on the terrace under the fake excuse of reading out their grandfather’s lost will. Once the entire clan i.e the Meerut ke avengers (we ain’t kidding, they are referred that at a point) gathers around, he drops a shocking revelation- Mohini is a daayan (witch).
The women of the household instantly dismiss Bantu’s spooky daayan claims and hail her as the ultimate feminist icon. But the lad comes armed with proof, laying out eyewitness accounts and daring his irritated relatives to poke holes in his crazy timeline. Will the family finally take him seriously, or is something far darker waiting behind closed doors?
What’s Yay
In its opening stretch, Nayyi Navelli takes aim at patriarchy with bold confidence. The film uses horror and comedy to shine a light on its cracks.
What’s Nay
The film suffers from a glaring identity crisis as it endlessly tugs itself between a quirky horror-comedy and a heavy-handed mythological drama.
Writing And Direction
On paper, the core idea of Nayyi Navelli from writers Divy Nidhi Sharma and Himanshu Sharma feels like a winner. A horror comedy that uses supernatural folklore to deliver biting satire on patriarchy is a concept brimming with promise. The twist of turning the dreaded figure of a daayan into a battleground for female agency is sharp. It sets up a story that could have been chilling, funny, and socially relevant all at once.
In execution, though, the film runs into a serious identity crisis. Director Balaji Mohan, previously known for helming Dhanush’s Tamil blockbusters Maari and Maari 2, struggles to find a steady rhythm in his Hindi directorial debut. He keeps pulling the film between eccentric family comedy and heavy mythological drama, never letting either side fully breathe. Mohan has handled larger-than-life themes before, but here the tone feels constantly at war with itself.
At its most grounded, the Awasthi family dynamics resemble the middle-class warmth of Gullak, only stripped of charm and thrown into a paranormal mess. The terrace meetings, the chaos, and the quirky squabbles have spark, but just as the story builds momentum, the direction veers into dense world-building.
Suddenly the narrative is buried under ancient stones, cosmic threats, and endless backstory tied to mythological figures. The sharp social commentary and humor get lost in a maze of supernatural rules and exposition. The light satirical tone keeps colliding with the apocalyptic weight of the fantasy element. By trying to juggle both a small-town family comedy and a sprawling mythological epic, the film loses its rhythm.
What remains feels too exaggerated to work as a serious saga and too bogged down by lore to land as a satisfying horror comedy.
Performances
Yami Gautam becomes the steady anchor of Nayyi Navelli as she holds the film together even when the story keeps shifting between tones. The actress plays the duality of perfect bahu and suspected daayan with a straight face, letting the accusations swirl while she remains unruffled.
When the film shifts into its mythological second act, Gautam changes gears with ease. She steps into a commanding presence and takes on the physical authority usually reserved for action leads.
However, even a lead performance this committed runs up against the constraints of half-baked writing. As the screenplay gets buried under lore and exposition, Mohini loses the psychological depth needed to justify her dramatic shifts. Gautam does the heavy lifting. She elevates the material and makes the transitions watchable. Her effort is committed and convincing. Yet it cannot fully hide the structural flaws.
Addinath Kothare plays the bewildered husband with convincing sincerity. As the story shifts into high-stakes mythology, his character is pushed into a very different space. Once Raja becomes the central target of the ancient forces tied to the Kaal Sheel stone, Kothare has little room left to truly showcase his range. Much of his work in the second half is swallowed by visual effects, dense lore, and plot mechanics rather than organic character growth. Nevertheless, he still commits fully to the physical and narrative demands of the climax.
Anurag Thakur’s performance feels trapped inside a single, unimaginative brief: try to play the next Abhishek Banerjee from the horror-comedy cinematic universe. His frantic outburst follows a template we have already seen. Thakur’s challenge grows harder because the character is saddled with a distracting lisp. This often muddies his delivery and makes his several punch lines difficult to follow in the middle of chaotic family arguments.
The rest of the ensemble, which includes Sunita Rajwar, Mita Vishisht, Pratiek Pachori, Sonal Jha, Suneel Sinha, Sushmita Mukherjee, and Aaditya Kulshrestha, delivers performances that are steady but never rise above the material. They keep the story afloat with reliable turns, yet none of them manage to lift the film beyond what is written on the page.
Tech Check
Rishi Punjabi’s cinematography in Nayyi Navelli takes a safe route and feels more functional than inventive. It does capture the small-town atmosphere, but the production design and camera work sometimes reveal their studio limitations. The problems grow bigger when the visuals move into supernatural and mythological territory. As the story dives into confrontations involving the Kaal Sheel stone and ancient forces, the cinematography struggles to create genuine dread or atmosphere. Instead of building a spooky or awe-inspiring mood, the lighting and effects lean on exaggerated tricks like glowing veins and heavy CGI. This approach dilutes the tension and keeps the film from ever feeling visually striking or immersive.
Sumeet Kotian’s editing mirrors the film’s larger confusion and lands in the middle zone.
Music
The soundtrack of Nayyi Navelli leaves little impact. Even with tracks like Bhabhi Tabaahi, Phata Patakha, and Awadhiya Ke Raja pushed as promotional highlights, none of them carry real recall value. They fade into the background instead of lifting the energy on screen or staying with you.
The Final Shot
Nayyi Navelli is a messy, overstuffed ride where Yami Gautam tries to save a film that stubbornly trips over its own ancient stone.
