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Sunday, April 28, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD ATHITHI TUM KAB JAOGE
EDITOR'S PICK
Rating: * ?
Be Ajay Devgan`s guest. So many films about the guest as an intruder. But this
one takes the creak. And yes we do mean creak. The plot sets out to portray the
`bin bulaye mehmaan`, or uninvited guest, as a pest rather than a guest and
finally spends agonizing playing time portraying him as a messiah in a dhoti.
Trust Paresh Rawal to get into the skin of his character. From first frame to
the last, Paresh has a blast. He doesn`t let go of a single moment of joy in
embracing the role of the unwanted guest in Mumbai`s very hectic self-absorbed
nuclear family where, as Devgan says in his heated summing-up homily, even
parents are not welcome after the first few days.
So how welcome is this film about an unwelcome guest? "Atithee Tum Kab
Jaoge" has its entertaining moments. But it`s essentially a one-episode
sitcom. And you wonder how far writer-director Ashwin Dheer will stretch this
version of Hrishikesh Mukherjee`s "Bawarchi" about the quirky and
persistent stranger who changes a family`s way of looking at life?
At mid-point director Dheer and his characters including the indefatigable
Paresh have run out of steam.
Post-interval the narration does a vivacious volte face. And suddenly the
boorish loudly burping belching and farting guest becomes a demi-god. A saviour
spreading sunshine across the 4-walls of Devgans` well-appointed home. Rawal
repairs all of Devgan and Konkona`s domestic and work-related problems and
leaves their home after having spread enough goodwill to do away with the other
pollutant emissions in the first-half.
Dheer`s writing is a skilled synthesis of satire and a strong message on the
virtues of an extended family.
Many passages of the film are designed as very little more than diversion and
deflections indicating the fracture in family values that is easily reparable
with some persuasion from an old-fashioned rustic guest with values that suggest
a deep connection between the scriptures and common sense.
Life in the cities is not that easy to fix. The film goes through a series of
cleverly orchestrated fable-like chapters, none uninteresting, but most of them
repetitive beyond a point.
Devgan and Konkona try to be funny. Konkona Sen needs to drastically expand her
repertoire of expressions from grimace and grin to more far-reaching
expressions. There`s an interesting cameo by Satish Kaushik (playing a harried
film director). And the funniest line comes from Kaushik when after repenting
the way he allowed his wife to treat his mother Kaushik resolves to make a
"Baghban type of film".
"Atithee" is just that. It starts off as a savage satire on the perils
of hospitality but ends up as another "Baghban".
Double entendres are often used in scripts to make people laugh, but actor Ajay Devgn says the makers of his forthcoming laugh-riot "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?" have not used them. Read More
'Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge?' has no romantic angle: KonkonaThere is no romantic angle to the movie "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge," award-winning actress Konkona Sen Sharma says about her new film. Read More
Athithi TUm Jaoge ? is the sstory of Puneet (Ajay Devgn) and Munmun(Konkana Sen), a happily married couple living in Mumbai whose lives take an interesting turn when a distant relative, Chandaji(Paresh Rawal) turns up unannounced at their doorstep from a far off village.
The guest overstays his welcome so much so that the exasperated couple come up with various plays to hasten his disparture his hilarious results
