The 2008 Hemraj-Arushi double murder case been smeared on the front pages of every daily for days together. Everyday a new clue or a new evidence was discovered which opened a completely different side of the case. When one decides to have such a case as the premise of their film, it is imperative that the research is right.

In 2008, the murder of 14-year-old Aarushi Talwar had stirred the nation. For several months, the case dominated prime time news, as the police were left baffled by the case. We saw this macabre turn of events unfolding on our TV screens, as from one murder the count went up to two, charges were fixed on the servants, and finally Aarushi's parents ended up behind bars.

Murder is the most abhorrent of all crimes. It repels us because no one wants to endure such a gruesome death. So when something like Aarushi Talwar's murder happens, where parents are accused of killing their only child, it shakes us to the core. Such an event points at crumbling cracks in our moral fibre and attracts a media explosion. The judiciary is hounded to bring out quick results and sometimes, the enquiry becomes damaged amidst the hurry. Also, things get bungled when two many agencies are at play.

A 14 year old girl Shruti Tandon is brutally murdered inside her bedroom in the house. Next day, the domestic help of the family, Khempal's body is found on the terrace of the house. The parents, Ramesh and Nutan Tandon (played by Neeraj Kabi and Konkona Sen Sharma) don't get the luxury of mourning over her death as soon after, they are embroiled in a situation where the father is suspected of killing her. The question is, did the father really kill her?

Having a compelling subject in hand is an ideal situation for any filmmaker. But for the makers of Talvar, which is a thinly veiled retelling of the investigation process of the 2008 Noida double murder case, it could well have been a hurdle. Here is a bunch of people, some of the best brains in the industry, trying to make a film on a murder case that has had an overwhelming amount of media coverage.

When senior investigator, Ashwin Kumar (Irrfan Khan) is forcefully tasked with a double murder case, he finds himself at a roadside Chinese eatery. An elderly Nepali woman, evidently the owner of the establishment, settles down next to him and bangs her glass on the table, demanding, "De". He fishes out a bottle wrapped inside a brown paper bag and pours into her aluminium glass, responding with a, "Le!" and refills his own too. He then picks up a bunch of photographs lying on the table and flips through them.

Aarushi Talwar double murder case was one of the most talked-about and followed cases in recent times, both in the media and the public. Can one pick a real life story for a movie and yet manage to make it gripping enough? Meghna Gulzar and Vishal Bhardwaj certainly can.

We all know that Bollywood is a place where reel incidents imitate the real ones. There have been many films in Bollywood, which have been made on real life incidents. A few years back, the mysterious death of a young girl named Aarushi Talwar rocked and shocked the whole nation. The same was translated on screen around last year in the form of the Tisca Chopra starrer RAHASYA. This week's release is TALVAR, happens to be yet another 'take' on the story plot that treads on the similar (if not same) premise.

Talvar is a minor miracle of a movie. Mining riveting yet balanced drama from a real-life murder case lost in a tangled web of fact, fiction, hearsay and insinuations could not have been easy. But not a wee bit of the effort shows. At one level, Talvar is a classic whodunit and a sharply observant police procedural that pieces together different facets of the mystery.

Straight away, Talvar is super-sharp, a sword swipe at Bollywood's song-and-dance, mehendi-fuelled escapism. Inspired by 2008's Aarushi Talwar double murder case, for which Aarushi's parents are serving a life-term, Talvar takes reality head on - and turns it on its head.

The 2008 Aarushi Talwar-Hemraj double murder case has been back in the news this year. First there was the film Rahasya, which was inspired by the case and released earlier this year. Then Avirook Sen's book, Aarushi, came out and now we have Meghna Gulzar's Talvar, a thinly-disguised retelling of how the murders were investigated. Truth in this case really is stranger than fiction. Within days of the murders, the UP cops had stated that they had solved the case.