New Delhi

"What's our place in the future?" That was the question director Ben Rekhi, actors Manoj Bajpayee and Divya Dutta set out to explore in the movie adaptation of Aravind Adiga's novel "Last Man in Tower", about a man going against his community to oppose the redevelopment of his residential society in Mumbai.

Bajpayee, who has mastered the art of depicting human loneliness on screen in films such as "Aligarh", "Gali Guleiyan", "Bhonsle", "Joram" and "Jugnuma", said the new movie felt like a documentary for the near future.

"It is a fine film on relationships and human connection. What people should take away from this is a warning for the coming future. No matter how old or new the building, or its size, at the end of the day, what you should be looking for is the relationships you build.

"You invest so much into all of those relationships and you just let it go because of commercial and materialistic reasons. And in the process, you lose yourself... So this (film) is about the possible calamity of human disconnect when we put a lot of focus on materialism," Bajpayee told PTI in an interview.

Produced and distributed by Rana Daggubati's Spirit Media, which also released Payal Kapadia's Cannes Grand Prix winner "All We Imagine As Light" and Rohan Parashuram Kanawade's "Sabar Bonda", "Last Man in Tower" features Bajpayee as a retired school teacher, known as Masterji.

When a prominent builder offers to buy out the entire apartment block, all the occupants agree except for Masterji. His decision to hold on to the home and principles he has lived by gradually puts him at odds with his neighbours, forcing him to stand alone as their priorities begin to shift.

Rekhi said he wanted to capture the feeling one goes through when things around start to change fast.

"On one level, it's about redevelopment. But I think what makes it bigger is that it's not just about dislocation in physical space. It's not about losing just your home or making a choice between material things. It's that the world is changing so fast. And with technology and with politics, climate change, AI coming, it can make us all feel dizzy and wonder, 'What is our place in the future?' Everything we know is being transformed. And that's a very scary place to be," he said.

The director said he could relate to Adiga's protagonist who is against this constant chase for material things.

"So, it is the individual versus the community. And these are also questions now, like one of the things that I'm most concerned about is the loss of community and how isolated people are... You had a sense of what the future would be like. Now, it's hard to see five, 10 years into the future. And that's a very scary place. So, this film actually speaks to that in a very real way."

Dutta plays the role of Mrs Sangeeta Puri, one of the neighbours of Masterji, and she said the character gave her an insight into a woman who has many shades.

"She could have been any ordinary woman, but with so much pressure in life, the challenge is thrown at her from every nook and corner.

"The only ray of hope happens when there's an opportunity that knocks at her door and come what may, she doesn't want to leave that. So there's a very thin line between just being a nice person and just pushing yourself to get what you want. You do not know who you are and where you belong, and that ambiguity makes Sangeeta a very interesting character for me," she said.

Rekhi said he got to know about "Last Man in Tower" through a friend soon after it was published in 2011. It was the second novel by Adiga, whose first novel "The White Tiger" (2008) won the Booker Prize and was later adapted into a successful feature film of the same name in 2021. His third novel "Selection Day" was turned into a Netflix series in 2018.

"This book is more subtle and kind of nuanced. And for some reason, at the time it went under the radar. It has since grown in popularity. I think it just got overshadowed by the success of 'The White Tiger'," the filmmaker said, adding that he later approached Adiga and convinced him to let him make a movie out of it.

"It took some conversations and some convincing of how we would do it. He's an artist like so many of us that these (books) are all his children," he said.

But the film took time to shape, added Rekhi, who brought in acclaimed Sooni Taraporevala, known for her collaborations with Mira Nair on movies such as "Salaam Bombay!", "Mississippi Masala" and "The Namesake", to adapt the novel.

"She brought it to a whole other level, her talent is really identifying what are the key characters, what are the storylines, and she does it from a place of like intuition. It's not about craft or story. It's just like what needs to be told from the story."

For Bajpayee, playing Masterji wasn't about deciding what kind of man he was and then performing it.

It was a continuous process of digging through the script, imagining his past, finding his physicality, understanding his psychology and gradually discovering the contradictory human being underneath the surface, he said.

"Human beings are so complex... One film is always not enough to play a person in entirety. Every friend of mine who has spent some years with me will have a different version of me... Then there are the versions that my wife, my daughter and parents have.

"As an actor, I'm trying to find the soul of the character. I was always trying to find the real Masterji -- what makes him tick? What makes him the person that he is? So there was not one way or one approach that I took to play Masterji. It was always a journey to find him till the end," he said.

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"Last Man in Tower", which also features Boman Irani in a pivotal role, will be released in theatres on Friday.