HASEEN DILLRUBA is the story of a wife accused of murdering her husband. Rishabh Saxena aka Rishu (Vikrant Massey) resides in Jwalapur along with his mother Lata (Yamini Das) and father Brijraj (Daya Shankar Pandey). He is looking for a girl for marriage and his search leads him to Rani Kashyap (Taapsee Pannu) in Delhi. Rishu falls for Rani instantly. Lata realizes that Rani is not the simple and homely girl that she's looking for. But Rishu is adamant. The marriage takes place.

Love is a many-splendored thing, as they say. In its pure form, it touches divinity. Sometimes it's lust, sometimes madness, and sometimes regret. It can also be redemption. Haseen Dillruba touches upon all forms of love in its two-hour setting and makes you root for its characters. They are ordinary people like you and me but driven by passion, they turn into both the worst and the best parts of themselves.

Haseen Dillruba (Beautiful Lover) begins with a crime and travels back in time through the testimony of the prime suspect - the wife of the alleged victim - who gives an account of her rocky marriage in excruciating detail to the police and further cements suspicion on herself. Taapsee Pannu stars as that wife, Rani Kashyap. Vikrant Massey plays Rishabh aka Rishu Saxena, the spouse she allegedly murdered. And Aditya Srivastava is Inspector Kishore Rawat, the policeman tasked with cracking the case. The investigating officer learns from Rani about Rishu's sexy cousin, Neel Tripathi (Harshvardhan Rane).

Haseen Dillruba revolves around an earnest engineer, his frisky wife, her hunky lover and a biased police officer. Hasee Toh Phasee director Vinil Mathew's new movie, which is out on Netflix, suggests that love isn't really love if it isn't amour fou - mad, passionate, reckless.

Netflix's latest offering, Haseen Dillruba, has a title which throws you off scent. A murder mystery, it has in one of the first scenes, Taapsee Pannu's Rani Kashyap asking the guy who has come bride hunting to her house if has read Dinesh Pandit's thrillers. He is wonderful with the way he spins the most devious of stories setting them in some of the smallest Indian towns. The boy, rather man - Rishu (Vikrant Massey), who works as an engineer in an electricity board at Jwalapur, has never heard of Pandit.

A young woman obsessed with crime thriller novels is accused of plotting her husband's gruesome murder. But as the investigation delves into her rocky married life and a torrid affair, what seemed like an open and shut case, turns into a complex whodunit.

To its voracious consumers, pulp fiction novels provide an exciting escape from mundane life in titillating accounts and sensational ideas. Vinil Mathew's Haseen Dillruba revolves around someone so taken in by its racy flight of fancy, she allows her reality to be dictated by her expectations to alarming effect.

What's with Taapsee Pannu and her eternal pursuit in finding the right "husband material"? We saw her being indecisive and conflicted over whom to choose, ultimately settling for Robbie (Abishek Bahchan) and ending the chapter with her ex-boyfriend Vicky (Vicky Kaushal), in Manmarziyan. In Haseen Dillruba, Taapsee finds herself in a similar state of indecisiveness over two men; one she desires and the one she settles for.

The first 10 minutes of Haseen Dillruba are so hectic that a part of me almost wanted some sort of an interval. A guy dies, there's a wedding, Kanika Dhillon gets an unconventionally flattering credit. And it does't get any better from there. Netflix India acquires bad films on an almost monthly basis, but this - a cartoonish cautionary tale about the perils of arranged marriage - is among the most disappointing.

A charmingly beautiful Rani Kashyap (Taapsee Pannu) is a prime suspect of her husband Rishabh Saxena aka Rishu (Vikrant Massey) murder. Inspector Kishore Rawat (Aditya Srivastava) is investigating the case and during the interrogation, some dark secrets emerge that further complicate the case. Who is Neel Tripathi (Harshvardhan Rane). Is Rani guilty or not guilty? And if not guilty then who is the culprit - Qatil Kaun?

Among the surprises that Haseen Dillruba, streaming on Netflix, springs is a character who looms large over the narrative but never shows up in person. He is a writer of racy crime stories. The titular protagonist cites his words when she is in a bind, which is pretty often. Pulp fiction delivers the pop philosophy she needs when things do not go her way.