3 Storeys Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2018 | Drama
Critics:
3 Storeys are three stories about people who live in a Mumbai Chawl (old fashioned project housing). It's almost refreshing and yet not really. Someone from the ensemble cast overdoes it. It's almost good, and then it isn't because you've read the story somewhere. It's an idea that's not new and yet, a decent effort. Would have been smarter move to put it straight to Netflix or Amazon.
Mar 8, 2018 By Manisha Lakhe


The female narrator says that she finds stories in the eyes of the people who live around her and proceeds to tell three of them.


The characters all live in a chawl in Bombay. The first story revolves around a Flory Mendonca and her blind love for her son Anton. Had the story been set on the ground floor, the end would have been more powerful and believable. But the story is just made ridiculous because Renuka Shahane, who is fine actor, overacts. Her 'Catholic Aunty' trope stops working when she keeps saying 'Jesus' all the time, her walk is obviously 'acting', and her cheeks stuffed with cotton look obviously fake, as does her ghastly wig. To top it, her co-star is Pulkit Samrat who just cannot stop channeling his inner Salman Khan, which is ridiculous.


The second story is a desperate adaptation of An Affair To Remember (1957, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr) played out by Sharman Joshi who plays Shanker Verma and Masumeh Makhija (she is surprisingly very very good) who plays Varsha Joshi. Since the story is set in Bombay, the two lovers decide to meet after a year on the Kohinoor Bridge after the lad has made something of himself. She waits at the Bridge and he waits at the Kohinoor Mills. Of course they miss each other and each gets married to other people. Varsha to a chap who is now drunk and Shanker to some nondescript ordinary woman. Their paths intersect because both live in the same chawl... This story is so painful to watch because a song is added, Varsha is shown to be abused by her husband... It's all very trite.


The third story is that of young love which the mother of the girl and the father of the boy vehemently oppose, making you wonder why they get so violent even though the very stereotypical 'mini India' that the chawl is, accepts the young love. The couple elope, are brought back by the cop (who lives in the chawl), and yes, they turn out to be siblings. It's all very excruciating, but the worst part is to watch chawl members behave like the nosy neighbors they must be, because, Ghetto.


The star of the show is Richa Chadha, who plays the story-teller. The end is practically brilliant. It suddenly turns the painfully predictable stories worth the two coffees you drank to stay awake during the film. It is an experiment, which would work better when watched on Netflix in the relative comfort of one's bed, where snoring would not be considered bad manners...


Manisha Lakhe

   

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