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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD MERI PYAARI BINDU
EDITOR'S PICK
'Meri Pyaari Bindu': Tedium
wrapped in retro sounds (Review By Subhash K Jha ; Rating: **)
Sometimes a debutant director shows a spark that never quite lights up
the screen. God knows, Akshay Roy displays a keen eye for Kolkata's
eccentricities: the trams and the fast-food lanes, the Durga idol
silhouetting the hero's suicide attempt, the loud boisterous parents of
the Bengali protagonist Abhi "so-called" so that the theme song of his
love story could be "Abhi na jao chod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin."
Abhi. Get it?
There is a lot to "get" in "Meri Pyaari Bindu" including its corny
cross references to films about unrequited love like Karan Johar's "Ae
Dil Hai Muskhil" and Nikhil Advani's "Katti Batti". Then there is the
film's "Padosan"-inspired title. The film's most embarrassing sequence
has Abhi's parents enacting the Kishore Kumar song in a car park.
Cringe late. Parineeti Chopra playing the unstable undependable runaway
bride to the stable dependable rock-steady dulha material of a
hero,explains that she was named after Saira Banu's character in the
evergreen comedy "Padosan".
"Why couldn't he name me Saira? So much sexier," she drawls into the
ear of Abhi (na ja chhod kar) as they zigzag in an old Ambassador car
through the Kolkata of the 1980s. This is life in the fast lane where
middleaged Bengali men speak of Satyajit Ray in the same breath as
Bindu's on screen vamping.
The cultural mishmash ceases to amusing after a while.
Clearly, Akshay Roy has a lot of fun picking out nostalgic nuggets from
our musical past. "Aaiye meherbaan dekhiye jaan-e-jaan" plays on a
black-and-white television set as some poor man hangs by the roof
adjusting the antenna. This is a scene straight of a promotional film
on Doordarshan's glorious era. It is correct historically culturally
but lifeless.
Ditto, the film which is as immaculately assembled in a retro huddle as
Suprotim Sengupta's writing permits. But the proceedings are as dull as
ditchwater with scene after scene serenading nostalgia with no room for
the characters to grow beyond stereotypes.
Take Abhi's Bengali parents. They are clownishly Bengali, screaming and
bustling as though Kolkata was on fire. This is not an authentic
Bengali household. It is how we see a Bengali household when the
Bengali writer detaches himself from the milieu and language to the
extent that he can no longer peer into the cultural dynamics without
appearing touristic.
There is something distinctly stilted and artificial in the way the
songs define the central relationship. Both Ayushmann and Parineeti are
musicians. It is therefore surprising that their keen appetite for the
melodies of the past do not render themselves to any substantial or
coherent commitment to creating a film about a quirky girl and her
devoted nextdoor neighbour who serves her purposes, whatever they may
be.
Parineeti did this far better in "Haseen Toh Phasee".
Ayushmann as the hangdog loverboy is the saving grace of this
dreadfully vapid non-romance about an annoyingly self-centred chick who
needs to exercise some self-discipline (unless she thinks Kangana
Ranaut in "Queen" is a role-model) and a guy who needs to get himself a
life. The film goes through several decades of fads and fashion changes
until it comes to a screeching halt with a finale that is as pointless
as the prattle and preening that goes on for the most tiresome two
hours of your life.
See the film for Ayushmann's sorted balanced intelligent performance as
too some interesting cameos, like the actor who plays his publisher
exhorting Khurrana to put sex and sleaze into is books.
I almost wished director Akshay Roy had livened up the proceedings with
some unpretentious sleaze instead of the unintentional cheesiness that
runs through the film with stubborn impunity. At one point in the
meandering saga of star-crossed non-lovers, we see Abhi's room-mate
glued to the Grand Finale of "Bigg Boss" while Abhi tries to deal with
the mess in his life.
It made me nostalgic for the abhorrent "Bigg Boss".
Actress Parineeti Chopra says she is proud of her association
with Yash Raj Films, under which she not only made her debut but also did movies
like "Ishaqzaade" and "Shuddh Desi Romance".
Parineeti on Friday attended
the Yash Chopra Memorial Award ceremony, where veteran singer Asha Bhosle was
feted an award in memory of late filmmaker Yash Chopra.
Since the actress
has worked in films like "Ladies vs Ricky Bahl", "Meri Pyaari Bindu", "Kill Dil"
and "Daawat-e-Ishq" -- all produced undRead More
She is just six years old in Hindi filmdom and has been a part of nine films, mostly in different genres. And actress Parineeti Chopra says she prefers not to play repetitive characters.Read More
Fed up with the lack of critical appreciation despite being a successful writer, Abhimanyu Roy (Ayushmann Khurrana) returns to his roots in Kolkata to write more meaningful literature and decides on an old-fashioned love story – which was now, 3 years in the making.
This writers block is called Bindu (Parineeti Chopra). How do you contain this unpredictable, crazy, restless, larger than life, live wire in the pages of a book?
As Abhi says ‘‘You know when a song comes on and you just have to dance? Bindu was that song. That silly infectious joyful tune you couldn’t get out of your head… even if you wanted to.”
So where should he begin? Where should he end?
But when Abhi stumbles across an old audio cassette of their favourite playlist, it sends Abhi down memory lane… and as he waltzes in and out of his past and present through the songs in the mixed tape, he finally faces reality and reconnects with his roots, with his family and his novel starts writing itself.
Of course, life in its usual scheming manner surprises him yet again and changes the ending of his book and his life, as he once again finds himself being pulled back into the center of that crazy little thing called love.
He realizes, that love, is neither time- nor place-dependent….
All we need is the right person next to us and of course the right soundtrack.
