Zid 2014

Rohan Karanvir Sharma “Ronnie” Achrekar, a crime reporter with a Goa-based newspaper called The Daily, finds himself under questioning by his newspaper’s editor Mohan Kapur and the area’s deputy superintendent of police. He explains that with the editor’s help he rented an apartment in his friend’s outhouse in a remote corner of Goa. The place feels haunted, and its owner is an elderly, paralyzed man who uses a wheelchair and is the father of Maya. Maya Mannara Chopra falls in love at first sight when she sees Ronnie, who is still healing from a breakup with his ex-girlfriend, Priya Shraddha Das. Maya phones her sister to confess her feelings and even pilfers a photo of Ronnie from its frame, mistaking the image for a sign that he reciprocates her affection. She notices a photo of herself on Ronnie’s desktop, which only reinforces her belief that he loves her back. In truth, Ronnie had snapped that picture during a ferry ride before they ever met, and he isn’t really in love with Maya; still, he plans a date-night at a nightclub.

At the nightclub, Ronnie crosses paths with Nancy Seerat Kapoor, Priya’s step-sister. Maya is upset when Ronnie and Nancy share a dance. On the ride home, Ronnie drives drunk and the SUV collides with a scooter driven by Nancy. Nancy tumbles off the road down a slope. In a panic, Maya—a trained nurse—races to help and convinces Ronnie to flee so they won’t be caught.

The next morning, Nancy is dead and the crash dominates the news as Goan police begin the investigation. Ronnie, terrified of being exposed, becomes entangled in the case in unexpected ways: Priya returns to India from London to search for Nancy’s killer, and as a journalist Ronnie is ordered by his editor to report from the crash site. He encounters Inspector Moses, who suspects that Priya killed Nancy for her share of the family inheritance and that Ronnie is Priya’s partner in the crime. Maya continues to shield Ronnie, and she even helps erase their traces—she dumps Ronnie’s SUV in a lake, taking him to the spot to show him the submerged vehicle.

Investigations reveal that Nancy would have survived the crash had she not been strangled. Priya visits Ronnie at the outhouse and asks him to help find the killer. On the return trip, Priya’s brakes fail and she crashes, though she survives. Soon, Priya and Ronnie rekindle their affair. Ronnie even excuses himself from Maya’s birthday dinner to spend the night with Priya. Maya discovers Ronnie’s whereabouts through his office and confronts him: she finds him with Priya and they are intimate. In a fit of jealousy, Maya sabotages Ronnie’s trusted routines and even feeds his pet puppy Bobby to her pet alligator.

Priya becomes suspicious of Maya after discovering Ronnie’s presence at the same bar where he met Nancy the night Nancy was killed. She confronts Maya at the outhouse, and they escalate into a brutal confrontation. Maya calls Ronnie for help, and when he arrives, she strikes him from behind, causing him to black out. Maya tries to flee but finds Inspector Moses outside; she fatally injures him after he voices suspicions about her guilt. Ronnie awakens to a cabin whose walls are covered with photographs of Maya, Ronnie, Nancy, Priya, Moses, and even Bobby, each marked with red crosses for the dead. Maya reappears and admits her role in the killings, also revealing that she once killed her own sister by pushing her from a boat into a lake in a jealous fit.

Maya blindfolds Ronnie and leads him to the top of a lighthouse—the place she calls Maya’s Kingdom—where she intends to marry him. She urges him to make love to her, while Priya hangs from a suspended chair nearby. Ronnie lights a cigarette and a spill of wine feeds the flame, triggering a fire. Maya shoots at Ronnie, but he wrestles the gun away and hurls her off the lighthouse, leaving her dangling. He saves Priya, and together they struggle to rescue Maya—who ultimately lets go and plunges to a death in the deep waters below.

The deputy superintendent of police accepts Ronnie’s account as the truth and promises him bail, while the editor vows to leverage the paper’s connections to secure a political favor. After the DSP and editor depart, Ronnie laughs, and the film cuts to a flashback that casts Maya’s supposed eliminations in a new light: it appears that many of Maya’s deeds were actually committed by Ronnie. In a final twist, it’s revealed that Priya and Ronnie had plotted to kill Nancy to seize the property and place all the blame on Maya, and that Maya may have truly loved him all along.