Piku
By Bollywood Hungama News Network, 7 May 2015, 20:46 hrs IST
There
have been many iconic Bollywood films set in Bengal like DEVDAS,
CHOKHER BALI, PARINEETA, KAHAANI etc. And now getting deeper into the
beautiful Bengali world is this week's release PIKU, which is set in a
typical Bengali household. Will this film prove to be as iconic as its
'predecessors', lets analyze.
The film starts off with a day in the life of the Delhi based Piku
(Deepika Padukone), whose world revolves around her architectural
office, her colleague Sayyed Afroze (Jishu Sengupta) and her father
ever-so-doting father Bhaskhor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan). Life is
absolutely monotonous for her. While her day starts off with her office
and ends with her ever-worried-about-constipation father Bhaskhor.
Despite all her efforts to brainwash him off the same, he refuses to
budge. That's why she compromises with the existing situation, which
also means that she has to cancel a lunch date in order to attend to her
'mentally constipated' father's constant SOS. Just when life is moving
in a monotonous manner for the Banerjee family, a sudden decision to
travel to Kolkata springs up. Because Bhaskhor rules out the possibility
of travelling by air or train citing his constipated problems, the
family decides to go on a road trip to Kolkata. One the other hand, due
to lack of 'availability' of any driver, the owner of a rental taxi
service Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan Khan) decides to drive the car himself.
It is during this trip that Piku and her father realize a few bitter
facts about life and about each other, courtesy, Rana, who doesn't
believe in mincing words when it comes to calling a spade a spade. It is
during this journey that a romantic tension develops between Piku and
Rana. But when they reach Kolkata, a tragedy strikes the Banerjee
household, which, not only changes the entire course of Piku's life, but
also brings the entire Banerjee household to a standstill. What is this
tragedy that strikes them, will Piku ever be able to find love and does
Bhaskhor ultimately find a solution to his constipation is what forms
the rest of the film.
Since the film comes from the stable of the 'thinking man's director'
Shoojit Sircar and the 'thinking man's writer' Juhi Chaturvedi (best
known for Vicky Donor), the film holds immense promise/ potential
as the whole. One has to applaud the way in which Shoojit has handled
the sweet and simple tale of PIKU. This film will definitely go down as
one of the films in his repertoire that demands a superlative applause.
After VICKY DONOR, MADRAS CAF and now with PIKU, Shoojit proves his
supremacy as a storyteller. Even though the film is good in overall
perspective, the climax is sudden and does seem to be left incomplete.
As far as the acting is concerned, this being an author backed role, no
prizes for guessing as to it is Deepika Padukone who leads the show from
all the fronts. One has to applaud this girl for making all the right
choices in her career as far as her film selections are concerned. To
stand up to the stalwarts like Amitabh Bachchan and Irrfan Khan is no
mean achievement and Deepika successfully does that and how! All in all,
she is excellent, sincere and shows immense growth as an actor. Despite
his ever-so-towering persona, Amitabh Bachchan, on the other hand, is
as down-to-earth as down-to-earth can get! Even though you will not find
'THE' Amitabh Bachchan and his famous mannerisms and baritone, you will
be really shocked and surprised to see him in a new light. His behavior
and mannerisms as a Bengali old man are simply outstanding. As for
Irrfan Khan, there is no denying the fact that he is truly brilliant in
his part. Despite the 'odd pairing' with Deepika, his onscreen chemistry
with her and her family in the film really crackles up all the scenes.
His interactions with Amitabh Bachchan are totally hilarious. The film
also sees the 'return' of the ever-charming Moushumi Chatterjee back on
the silver screen. In no way, has she lost the magic of her 'simplistic
approach' towards her roles. She is an absolute endearing delight to
watch in the film. The other actors like Jishu Sengupta and Raghuveer
Yadav help the film in moving forward.
Since it's a simple film, the music of the film is also expected to be
simple. And the film's music director Anupam Roy delivers just that.
Even though there are not any chartbusting tracks in the film, the music
of the film helps as a major driving force in the film's progress.
While the film's cinematography (Kamaljeet Negi) is beautiful, the
film's editing (Chandrashekhar Prajapati) is crisp. A special mention to
the film's costume designer (Veera Kapur) for keeping the costumes 'in
check' with the 'flow' of the film.
On the whole, PIKU is a must watch this season as it brings back the
memories of the legendary directors Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Basu
Chatterjee and likes. This is a film that shall grow with word of mouth.
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