Thursday, June 21, 2018
BOLLYWOOD AAMRAS
EDITOR'S PICK
`Aamras` a bubbly brew of teenage years (IANS Film Review; Rating: **1/2)
Rating: **1/2
"Aamras" is a coming-of-age comedy about four 18-going-on-adulthood
girls. Pari (Natasha) is the upper class snob who often funds the fun ideas of
her middle class best-friend Jiya (Vega). Their equation seems a very distant
descendent of Amitabh Bachchan and Rajesh Khanna in "Namak Haraam".
Add to the twosome`s on-and-off bonding a couple of more inseparable friends
like Rakhi (Maanvi) and Sanya (Annchal) and you have a bubbly brew of
backslapping and bonhomie during times of picnics, parties, growing up and
realising that life is not just a fun zone.
"Aamras" is high on content. Debutant director Rupali Guha, who is
veteran filmmaker Basu Chatterjee`s daughter, pays winking homages to her dad
and his colleague Hrishikesh Mukherjee. At the girls` picnic the man-in-charge
is named Parimal Tripathi (Ashish Roy), a la Dharmendra in "Chupke Chupke".
Guha gives a sweet and sometimes slyly amusing spin to the high-school hijinks
of a foursome that just wants to have fun, but soon gets to know that life has
other plans. However, the director fails to carry off the emotional high-points
like the rich Pari`s anger and jealousy when Jiya gets a boyfriend, or the death
of Jiya`s mother.
Guha has happily cast a quartet of newcomers in the lead who make the energised
trivia of teen life seem believable and warm. The film has that quaint cosy
feeling that the director`s father specialised in. The script moves forward at a
measured pace, even when it`s let down by uneven technical details.
Of late there have been some frank and forthright exposes on school-going mores
and values. Director Robby Grewal`s "Mera Pehla Pehla Pyar" and Satish
Kaushik`s recent "Teree Sang" showed the compulsive fixation on dating
and match-making among post-adolescent teenagers.
In "Aamras", the foursome`s friendship is done with sincerity.
However, the cosy intimacy wears thin when the principal characters begin to
behave like one-dimensional stereotypes rather than the real people you tend to
believe them to be initially.
The script crams too much into the narrative`s fragile frame. Loud,
malfunctional families, the laughable arrogance of the rich, friendship and
jealousy over parties, stealthily-shot kisses on the phone, a beloved
mother-figure stabbed and a painting competition where the middle class girl
sacrifices her chance to go to Paris for the rich friend -- all this is like
placing heavy baggage on a tender shoulder.
Finally the film`s narrative seems to have bitten off more than it can chew. You
like the film for its sweet and honest intentions rather than the execution. The
performances by the four girls range from the warmly credible to the passable.
The girls make a convincing quartet. The supporting cast of veterans is
surprisingly lacklustre.
Why does Reema Lagoo assume a hideous hammy avatar to play the flirty teacher?
Basu-da would cringe at that one.
