Oct 11, 2012

iDiva: Movie Review Aiyyaa

iDiva
Movie Review Aiyyaa
Oct 12th 2012, 09:24

 


Director
: Sachin Kundalkar
Cast: Rani Mukherji, Prithviraj

The female lead of the film has a strange smell fetish. She is turned on by the musk of a man. And that is an attribute enough to qualify him as her dream man!!!  Unfortunately the film largely (rather only) banks on this female fixation, which isn’t an attribute enough to qualify for a feature length film. Alas you smell the rat quite early!

Meenakshi (Rani Mukherji) is an average (and animated) Marathi mulgi from Pune and her middleclass family is in search of a prospective groom for her. Meenakshi has the hots for Surya (Prithviraj) plainly because he smells good. But Surya is an artist in his own world and is indifferent towards everything on this planet. Meenakshi gets engaged to Madhav (Subodh Bhave) but can’t get over Surya. After much hue and cry, Aiyyaa ends up being the zillionth film where the girl runs away from her marriage mandap to be with the man of his dream.

Inspired from the chapter Lagnaachya Vayachi Mulgi (A girl of marriageable age) from the episodic Marathi film Gandha (2009) by the same director Sachin Kundalkar, the primary problem with Aiyyaa is that a 30-minute plot is stretched into a two-hour-30-minute film. Thereby half-baked characters and lame subplots are added to elongate the short story. The idea might have been to come up with wacky characters but, after a while, their eccentricities end up being irritating over amusing. So you have a father who smokes four cigarettes at a time, a brother who wants to start a global trade out of managing dogs and a wheelchair-ridden grandmother with golden (teeth) smile. But the most annoying of them all is Meenakshi’s colleague Maina who seems to have a strong Lady Gaga hangover and is intentionally appalling in her garish makeup and grotesque dialogue delivery.

For its major runtime, the narrative keeps beating around the bush. The first time that the plot makes an attempt to progress is as late as the interval point when Meenakshi gets engaged. Before that all she does is to get aroused every time Surya moves past her. And even after that she does the same. And all that Surya is supposed to do in the film is pick some books from the library and snub Meenakshi.

Beyond the sensuously shot dreamy item songs, there isn’t any palpable chemistry between the lead couple. That’s primarily because it’s merely a one-sided love track playing throughout the film from the heroine’s viewpoint and the hero remains oblivious of his self sex-appeal. Not only does the film get one-dimensional with Meenakshi’s obsession, you stop relating or even caring for her after a while. And after such indifference, when the hero suddenly professes love for Meenakshi, you understand that the film couldn’t have opted for a more convenient climax.

Almost every attempt by the director to add humour to the proceedings falls flat miserably. The treatment is not completely loud or slapstick but the film has a bland sense of humour. Also the continual spoofy tone of the film doesn’t register well, for Kundalkar is no Farah Khan. Somewhere the director tries to blend the artistic appeal of the original plot with commercialism and in this concoction, the subtle symbolism and surrealism is lost.

Rani Mukherji adds extra energy to keep the proceedings lively. She occasionally gets the Marathi dialect incorrect yet is charming. But you certainly stop rooting for her droning character after a while. The only time that Prithviraj emotes is while dancing in songs. Otherwise he’s an unresponsive cold-character throughout with hardly a couple of lines to speak. You don’t feel for him yet you are glued to him, which means he commands good screen presence. Subodh Bhave is decent in his role. Ameya
Wagh as the younger brother seems to be a compressed version of Riteish Deshmukh in terms of his looks, expressions and dialogue delivery. Anita Date as Meenakshi’s friend Maina is tawdry.

Aiyyaa is an expression of surprise in Marathi. Unfortunately it turns out to be more of a shock here. This one is boring and can put you to sleep. So wake up and smell the coffee!

 

Media files:
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