Directed by: Sachin
Kundalkar
Starring: Rani Mukherjee,
Prithviraj
Released: 2012
Verdict: destroy every
copy – horrible – bad – whatever – flawed but enjoyable -
good – great – amazing
Promos were mostly fun and
reviews atrocious. I had been looking forward to Aiyyaa, but after
reading reactions randomly appearing on forums and blogs, my
expectations for the movie went really low. Partly because of that,
partly because my original willingness to like it and partly of
course because I am a source of unpopular opinions – I ended up far
from hating it. Aiyyaa is not the fun the promos promised and the
treatment of the story is kinda all over the place, but ultimately it
is an OK one time watch. If you are not watching with family and like
Rani Mukherjee.
Meenakshi is an ordinary
girl from a somehow crazy and over the top family who is trying to
wed her off at the soonest. While the prospective grooms come and go,
Meenakshi is trying to set up her own life by taking up a job as a
librarian at art college. She falls in love with a student and
surprisingly not because he has the face and body of the souther
superstar Prithviraj, but because he just smells like heaven. She
keeps following him and asking about him, while he seems completely
oblivious. Meanwhile her family finds a suitable groom and fixes her
engagement, and poor Meenakshi doesn´t know what to do, especially
because her Mr. Good-smelling has a really bad reputation.
First problem there is –
who is Meenakshi? She is introduced to us as a young woman who is
supposed to be wild, carefree and aspiring a film star. But ten
minutes into the film and you realize she is none of that. Her
„filmstar“ dream is never mentioned again and her slipping into
daydreaming and imagining herself as a famous heroine (which gives us
the best ten minutes of the film – Rani enacting some famous songs
by Madhuri, Sridevi and Juhi was real fun) has no importance in the
story either. The scene with Meenakshi trying to buy drugs, because
she thinks that is what makes Prithviraj smell so good, was not only
completely needless, but did not make any sense. An educated computer
professional she is supposed to be would certainly know something
about drugs and would hardly go buy it with a big smile and loose
change in her hands. There are more similarly useless moment in the
film, for example when Meenakshi runs away from her fiancé´s house
– it is never mentioned again and we do not even get to see what
effect it had. At times it feels the script writer had something in
mind, started to write, but then decided to to progress, but at the
same time felt sorry for what was already written so it stayed in the
film.
Supporting cast does a
good job. Sure, Meenakshi´s whole family is mad, alright, and so is
her co-worker in the library. I did not find them annoying but
definitely could see why others might. As a person who prefers
Madhavan over Hrithik Roshan I preferred the character of Madhav to
character played by Prithviraj, and actually caught myself hoping
Meenakshi would marry Madhav and Prithviraj´s character Surya would
indeed prove to be an eccentric junkie, but I guess that´s just me.
Aiyyaa could have easily
been a cute family film, or at least a kind of romantic comedy, but
it ends up being all over the place. And in the end you realize
hardly anything happened during the film. It is difficult to finish
it at one go, I had to make several breaks. All in all I did not
really mind the film, even enjoyed the first hour quite a bit,
unfortunately right after the infamous Dreamum Wakeupum song it went
all downhill.
Apart from the lavani
number Sava Dollar which introduces Meenakshi to the viewer right at
the beginning of the film, all of the songs made me feel awkward and
happy that I was watching the film alone. Rani is in my opinion one
of the most underrated dancers and I love her energy, but
choreography and picturization of the songs in Aiyyaa is just
screaming „vulgar“, bordering at moments on the verge of becoming
soft porn. While I understand Meenakshi was a young and healthy woman
with normal female fantasies.... I was left with a feeling I did not
want to see her fantasies on my screen, no matter how well she dances
or sexy she looks (which she did). The song picturized on Meenakshi´s
brother and co-worker is downright unwatchable.
The film stands on Rani,
and she is the best thing about it. She nails the role perfectly, her
expressions and dialogue delivery are superb. As mentioned already,
she dances great (but oh... well....) and looks beautiful. At the
same time a role like this is a piece of cake for her, and while she
has nothing more to prove as far as her acting talent is concerned,
one still feels kinda cheated, especially because the film is so
clumsily written and executed. It is on the „dark“ side, but not
the worst of the year for sure, even though I say while writing this
review I realized several things that I managed to blissfully ignore
while watching.
I just read a real positive review of Aiyyaa, but otherwise I'm quite sceptic about it too... We'll see though.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review.
Don´t expect much and you might enjoy. But I don´t think even hardcore Rani fans can label it as "good".
DeleteThanks to gifs of the vulgar/sexy moments, and some OTT acting: I was not interested in this movie. Months later, I came across the wacky songs and decided... "why not see it in context". I was expecting a shitty movie, but Rani is so damn likable that I enjoyed this Heroine and her mundane drama. And I totally wanted to know what happened after she left his apartment. Anyhoo. Besides the lovely cinematography, true, the story has some precious and entertaining moments... and some very embarrassing and needless ones as well. And that coworker ( -____- ). Of the Southern Masalas to hit Bollywood in the last few years, Aiyyaa is one of the few I intend on coming back to.
ReplyDelete