NEW DELHI, India | September 25, 2026 — A forbidden forest. An ancient goddess. A man who has stopped believing. And a village convinced that some boundaries should never be crossed.
That is the fascinating promise at the heart of The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest, starring Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia.
For a while, the film delivers exactly what that premise promises. The forest feels mysterious. Chhath Puja gives the story a strong cultural identity. Faith clashes with scepticism. An old legend begins to feel dangerously real.
Then the film enters the forest a little too deeply — and starts losing its way.
Too many explanations, uneven visual effects and an overloaded climax gradually weaken the mystery that makes the first half so engaging.
So, is The Vvaan worth your money at the cinema?
Yes, if Indian folklore and supernatural fantasy attract you. But the film’s strongest magic appears before the interval.
INVC NEWS Rating: ★★½ / 5
INVC NEWS | BEYOND THE HEADLINE
What works. What doesn’t. Is it worth watching?
THE 60-SECOND REVIEW
Film: The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest
Director: Deepak Kumar Mishra
Writer: Arunabh Kumar
Cast: Sidharth Malhotra, Tamannaah Bhatia, Sunil Grover, Maniesh Paul, Anup Soni and Shweta Tiwari
Runtime: Approximately 2 hours 16 minutes
Genre: Folklore Fantasy Thriller
Release Date: September 25, 2026
INVC NEWS Rating: ★★½ / 5
Best Part: Folklore setting, Chhath Puja atmosphere and first-half mystery
Weakest Part: Overloaded second half and underwhelming climax
What Is The Vvaan About?
The story follows Rishi, played by Sidharth Malhotra, who lives in Mumbai with his wife Mamta, played by Tamannaah Bhatia.
Rishi has distanced himself from the faith and traditions connected with his ancestral village. His personal life also carries emotional wounds that have shaped the way he sees belief, family and destiny.
Circumstances eventually take Rishi and Mamta back to Devanchal around Chhath Puja.
There, an old land dispute collides with something far more unsettling.
A proposed road threatens a forest that villagers consider sacred. Local belief says Van Devi protects the forest and that disturbing its boundaries can have serious consequences.
Rishi does not believe these warnings.
Then strange things begin to happen.
What starts as a family drama slowly becomes a confrontation between faith, logic, greed, nature and forces that Rishi cannot easily explain.
The First Half Pulls You Into the Forest
The Vvaan works best when it refuses to reveal too much.
Director Deepak Kumar Mishra allows folklore to enter the story gradually rather than throwing supernatural spectacle at the audience immediately.
The village setting helps enormously.
So do the rituals surrounding Chhath Puja.
There is something naturally intriguing about a modern man returning to a place governed by traditions he no longer believes in.
The film also raises an interesting question about development and preservation.
Should a road pass through land that villagers consider sacred? Is ancient belief protecting nature, or merely resisting progress? Could the old stories contain truths that modern people have chosen to forget?
For a considerable stretch, these questions make The Vvaan feel like it could become a powerful Indian folklore thriller.
Sidharth Malhotra Gives Rishi a Solid Centre
Sidharth Malhotra carries much of the film.
Rishi does not enter the story frightened by supernatural forces. He approaches the village and its beliefs with scepticism, which makes his gradual confrontation with unexplained events more interesting.
Sidharth handles the physical portions confidently and brings sincerity to Rishi’s emotional conflict.
However, the screenplay rushes parts of his transformation.
The journey from disbelief to acceptance needed more breathing room. A slower psychological shift could have made Rishi’s eventual choices much more powerful.
Sidharth remains committed throughout.
The writing simply does not always give him enough depth to work with.
Tamannaah Bhatia Brings Emotional Warmth
Tamannaah Bhatia plays Mamta with restraint and emotional warmth.
Her relationship with faith differs from Rishi’s, creating an interesting contrast between the couple.
Mamta’s personal pain and devotion give the film some of its quieter, more effective moments. The Chhath Puja sequences, in particular, allow Tamannaah to bring tenderness to a story otherwise increasingly occupied by supernatural conflict.
However, her character deserved more.
The screenplay often places Mamta alongside Rishi’s journey instead of allowing her to become an equally powerful force within it.
That feels like a missed opportunity.
Maniesh Paul Provides the Comic Relief
Maniesh Paul enters with the responsibility of lightening the atmosphere.
Sometimes it works.
His natural comic timing generates a few genuinely entertaining moments.
However, the humour does not always sit comfortably beside the supernatural tension.
Some jokes continue longer than necessary and interrupt scenes that should be tightening the suspense.
The tonal imbalance becomes more obvious as the story moves towards its darker second half.
Sunil Grover Steps Into Darker Territory
Sunil Grover moves away from his familiar comic persona and takes a darker route.
He commits fully to the character and initially adds another layer of unpredictability.
However, once the screenplay begins revealing his larger purpose, much of that uncertainty disappears.
Anup Soni and Shweta Tiwari add credibility to the family portions but receive limited material.
That reflects one of the film’s central problems.
There are interesting characters everywhere, but too many of them compete for space inside the same screenplay.
The Second Half Starts Losing Its Grip
This is where The Vvaan begins to struggle.
The first half creates questions.
The second half becomes determined to answer almost every one of them.
More mythology arrives. More backstory follows. The supernatural scale grows. The action becomes louder. Explanations keep piling up.
Unfortunately, the mystery begins disappearing at exactly the point where it should become most intense.
Instead of tightening the narrative, the screenplay keeps expanding it.
The result gradually moves away from an atmospheric folklore thriller and towards a more conventional fantasy spectacle.
That shift costs the film much of the tension it worked hard to create.
VFX Struggle to Match the Ambition
A supernatural fantasy built around divine and ancient forces needs visual effects that make the impossible feel believable.
The Vvaan certainly has ambition.
Its execution is less consistent.
Several sequences work because of strong atmosphere, lighting and production design. Others make the supernatural elements feel more artificial than threatening.
The weakness becomes particularly noticeable during the climax.
When a film asks viewers to believe in an ancient mystical power, its final spectacle needs to deepen that sense of wonder or fear.
Here, some of the visual execution does the opposite.
The Forest Should Have Been the Biggest Star
The smartest idea in the film is sitting right there in its title.
The forest.
A forbidden forest does not need constant spectacle to become frightening.
A sound between trees can work.
A shadow can work.
Silence can work.
The Vvaan understands this during its strongest passages.
Then it starts explaining the mystery.
And the more it explains, the smaller that mystery begins to feel.
The film would have been considerably more unsettling had the makers trusted atmosphere, suggestion and silence over elaborate exposition.
Sometimes what remains unseen is far more powerful than what finally appears on screen.
Faith Versus Logic Is the Film’s Strongest Theme
Underneath the supernatural packaging lies a genuinely interesting conflict.
What happens when modern rationality collides with inherited faith?
Should every old tradition be rejected simply because science cannot immediately explain it?
At the same time, should every belief be accepted without questioning it?
Rishi becomes the vehicle through which the film explores this tension.
The road project adds another layer by placing development against environmental and cultural preservation.
These ideas could have elevated The Vvaan far beyond a routine fantasy thriller.
The screenplay touches them but rarely digs deeply enough.
Does the Climax Work?
Only partly.
The film eventually builds towards a large confrontation between opposing forces.
Visually, it wants grandeur.
Emotionally, it wants faith, family and Rishi’s transformation to come together.
But the climax becomes crowded.
By this point, so much mythology and explanation have entered the narrative that the emotional connection begins weakening.
You understand what is happening.
You can see what the film wants you to feel.
But you do not always feel it with the intensity the story demands.
That is where The Vvaan falls short of its own potential.
Should You Watch The Vvaan?
Yes — but expectations matter.
If you enjoy Indian folklore, mythology-inspired fantasy, supernatural stories and culturally rooted settings, The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest contains enough interesting material for a one-time theatrical watch.
Sidharth Malhotra gives the story sincerity.
Tamannaah Bhatia brings emotional warmth.
The Chhath Puja setting gives the film personality.
And the first half successfully creates genuine curiosity.
However, anyone expecting a consistently frightening horror film may be disappointed.
The Vvaan works better as a folklore-fantasy adventure with supernatural elements than as pure horror.
INVC NEWS Verdict
The Vvaan: Force of the Forrest has a stronger idea than its final execution.
Its sacred-forest mythology, culturally rooted setting and conflict between faith and reason provide a compelling foundation.
Sidharth Malhotra and Tamannaah Bhatia keep the journey watchable.
But an overloaded screenplay, inconsistent visual effects and a weaker second half prevent the film from becoming the haunting folklore thriller it initially promises to be.
You enter the forest wanting to discover its secret.
You leave wishing the film had kept a little more of that secret hidden.
INVC NEWS Rating: ★★½ / 5
