Aiyyaa Hindi Movie
Long gone are the days when an actor would say his/her film is different and it would turn out to be a regular Bollywood potboiler. With the onset of various unlikeliest of gems creating a furore at the box-office, one only gets further more intrigued at the slightest mention of anything unconventional in a storyline. And what more unusual than to have the female lead go head over heels for a man only for his odour?
Meenakshi Deshpande (Rani Mukherji) is a highly animated and over the top, middle class Marathi girl from Pune. She prefers living in her dream world which consists of impersonating her favourite actresses Sridevi, Madhuri and Juhi. If you thought Rani's quirks are enough, wait till the absurdities of the entire household grip you. So you have Baba, the father, who smokes three cigarettes at the same time, Aaji, the grandmother on the wheelchair wearing sunglasses in the house and has gold teeth, bhau, the brother, who's only love in live is that for street dogs.
Proceeding ahead with the story, the Deshpande family is in a look out for a suitable groom for Meenakshi. However, the latter's likings with regards match up to her quirks. She wants a South Indian (read dark-skinned) male. Enters Surya (Prithviraj) and Meenakshi in one swift movement falls for his tanned skin and body odour. However, Surya is completely ignorant of her while in the meantime Meenakshi's parents have her engaged to another man Madhav (Subodh Bhave). The rest of the film revolves around Madhav chasing Meenashi while the latter chasing Surya.
Aiyyaa is based on debutant filmmaker Sachin Kundalkar's 2009 short film Gandha. Although the concept on papers or as a short capsule sounds interesting, the problem comes about when Sachin stretches it to massive proportions. The entire first half dwells on the quirks of the Deshpande Family and with a little twist coming right towards the interval point by the time of which you are tired and restless.
Humour being one of the strong elements in the film also fails to impress and only turns out to be a low IQ farce affair. There's zilch amount of logic used in the film and the over the top antics only make matters worse.
Both Subodh and Prithviraj aren't given any dialogues to deliver. Prithviraj only takes some advantage of being a South superstar and mouths a few liners that too towards the end of the film. considering the fact that he merely had to be a good looking prop, the South Star is average at best.
The film completely centers around Rani who tries all tricks of trade written in the acting book to launch herself in the main league. She goes dramatic, over the top, loud, humorous but sadly none of it aides the storyline. It's difficult to believe that the same actress who's had critically acclaimed films in the past stooping to such mediocrity.
Rani shoves all her energy in the dance sequences. But even at that with the exception of Dreamum Wakepum or Aga Bai, the rest of the numbers fail to impress one bit.
To sum it up, Aiyyaa, is a major disappointment coming from the production house of Anurag Kashyap and from the once upon a time highly revered actress Rani Mukerji. Watch this 'Wakda' tale at your own risk.
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