The Ending Of Andhadhun Explained
Note: This interview contains major spoilers from the movie.
If you’ve seen filmmaker Sriram Raghavan’s AndhaDhun, you’d agree that the thriller leaves you with more questions than answers. Does Ayushmann Khurrana’s Akash regain his eyesight? But how? Or maybe he never lost it. The theories are endless, as are the chat threads on the internet which dissect the open-ended final moments of the movie. Raghavan and his co-writer and editor Pooja Ladha Surti are rather pleased with the confusion they have caused. It was a “definite ambiguous end”, they explain. Then, there are also the various fanboy tributes to films and filmmakers Raghavan admires that he sneaked into the movie.
Here I ask Raghavan and Surti to uncover all the hidden meanings of AndhaDhun.
It’s been weeks since the release of AndhaDhun and there are several YouTube videos and Quora threads with people decoding the possible meanings of how the film ended.
Sriram Raghavan: Which is a big surprise! The conventional wisdom all around us was don’t make it a divisive ending. The example of The Lunchbox was given to us — that people didn’t understand the end. I was like ‘are you daft?’ So yes, the end was a risk. It could have gone all wrong if too many people said samajh mein nahi aaya.
Pooja Ladha Surti: It was a definite ambiguous end.
How many possible explanations did you think of while constructing the open ending?
PS: There are about 2–3 right answers to what the end means.
SR: In the second half what can happen is that either he is still blind and he’s become a better musician. He’s found his groove but he’s used to being blind. That is one possible ending. He could have just been kicking the can out of his way, doesn’t mean he can see.
The other is that he’s not blind and it’s a subterfuge kind of a thing. But then how did he get the eyes? Again that opens up a bunch of questions. He could have got it from many sources. And in the film there is a structural break also which could be there for the heck of it or it could be there for a reason (when it skips two years ahead). So to answer any of these would reduce the whole thing. We thought after the titles we’ll have a post credit or something, but then we decided against it.
Read the full interview here https://www.filmcompanion.in/the-mystery-ending-and-more-sriram-raghavan-answers-everything-you-need-to-know-about-andhadhun/