Bollywood Diaries Hindi Movie

Feature Film | 2016 | UA | Drama
Critics:
Three stories of Bollywood crazy people is a good idea. But the film suffers when the three stories are dragged through the mud way after the audience has figured out the end of each story.
Feb 25, 2016 By Manisha Lakhe


A Kolkata prostitute who is so Bollywood crazy she is willing to seduce with a special dance any customer who says they're from Mumbai. A retired gent who has kept his Bollywood dream at bay for 30 years. And a call centre chap who gets a chance to audition for a reality show that is a hunt for the next Bollywood star.


Three rather interesting stories, but when they start rolling, you realise that the three stories are not going to be connected at all. They could easily be shorts just put together and edited event by event to look as though these were parallel events.


So Raima Sen, acting mostly with her eyes, does a great job as the prostitute with Bollywood in her blood. Excited at receiving a genuine Bollywood Associate Director, she bares her soul because he's looking for a story.


Ashish Vidyarthi is a happy dad whose Guddi is shown getting married. He's happy at the wedding, but then he tells his wife why: he is going to Bombay to pursue his acting ambitions, now that his responsibilities are done.


Salim Diwan is a call center employee who takes his chance at a reality show. He has zero talent, but his weird act brings in TRPs so they select him. He's oblivious to the game and reaches stage 3 when the stage is set for his fall.


And they all fall. Because the stories are too obvious. The prostitute loses her money because the Bollywood chap doesn't come back. The call center guy loses everything, including his mind. And the case of the retired gent, the story becomes just too implausible, and hence too weird to swallow.


Raima Sen deserves praise for looking shattered when she sees the lad sell her story as his own on TV. But they should have ended the story when she signs up for a soul shattering contract as a dancer in Dubai. Showing her actually dance in scanty clothes in Dubai was just not necessary.


The same with the call center lad. We all know that the fame on TV is ephemeral. Showing him overdo the madness with makeup that looks like he was a reject at a KISS concert and weird superhero costume with his undies worn over pants and cape, is just stupid. It would have been just as effective to show him cowering in a corner in his room or something else. The retired gent is found suffering a disease, and finds his guruji to teach him how to be born again in a Bollywood star's home. What?


Don't ask. What you see is so far fetched, you have to suspend your disbelief until your patience snaps.


What started out as stories of three Bollywood crazy people ends up being ridiculous. You know there is potential in the film. But they should have worked harder at the stories, maybe connected them. After all people with Bombay dreams do come to Bombay from Delhi and Kolkata and Bhilai...

Manisha Lakhe

   

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