Saturday, October 13, 2012
Aiyyaa
Wakda Ouch!
A jobless woman, is exhibited regularly by
her family, before a series of eligible men. They find something lacking in
her. But she is fine with that, lingering as she does in fantasies of dancing
and singing with the movie heroes.
First-time Hindi film director Sachin Kundalkar’s Aiyyaa
can be cheered for selecting a woman-oriented subject which says that
singletons can have their dreams and perhaps achieve them too, when they take a
practical approach towards asserting their own identity. Notionally this is
fine but the story-screenplay does not have enough conviction to make her an
intelligent, modern day working woman. She remains silly and in the tradition
followed by our movies, does not speak her mind out without making us suffer
through reels and reels of feverish attempts at entertainment.
Scaled like a Hrishikesh Mukherjee or Basu
Chatterji medium-budget romcom of the 1970s, Kundalkar’s heroine, Meenakshi
(Rani Mukherji), sees herself imitating the popular chartbusters danced to by
Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi and Juhi Chawla. She lives with a nagging mother, a
caring father and a taunting brother in a Pune house, and has been subjected to
endless sessions of serving tea to prospective grooms and their parents.
The film opens with her rushing to an art
school for a job interview. Miraculously, she gets one very easily. Her
co-worker (Amita Dave) is odd, also imitating Bollywood heroines. She carries a
water-bottle of vodka and after initial hesitation, befriends Meenakshi. At
home, the situation continues to be status quo till a congenial man (Subodh
Bhave) agrees to accept her bride. This ‘acceptance’ leads the man to ask her
in private, if she approves of him as well. Nice touch.
Meanwhile, the fantasy-prone Meenakshi has
fallen in love with an art student (Prithviraj) who doesn’t care to give her a
second glance. Since he is a Tamilian by birth, the Maharashtrian heroine
learns his language and also talks of idli sambhar (typical that) besides
paying a clandestine visit to his mother. The plot gets overloaded and is also
stuffed with too many parodies of old and new Hindi cinema, ranging from
Himmatwala and Mr India to Dev D. The last one may have been an in-joke by the
film’s producer Anurag Kashyap.
The climax is oddly paced, as if the director
had lost speed. Amit Trivedi’s music score is catchy particularly when it gets
into the zany grooves.
Prithvi making his bow in Hindi screen is
given a silent, thankless role. The focus is on Rani Mukherji, of whom the best
thing which can be said, that she does not go over the top. She has a fine supporting
cast of theatre actors, including the iconic playwright, Satish Alekar.
Labels: Cinemaah
