Thumbs up for Rani, thumbs down for everything else

KARACHI:

Aiyyaa is a strange film; a narrative that takes you around a maze only to make you realise that there is no way out.

Directed by Sachin Kundalkar, Aiyyaa is the story of Meenaxi (Rani Mukherjee), a middle-class Marathi girl with a strong sense of smell and an overly dramatised family. A blind grandmother with gold teeth on an automated wheelchair; a brother who likes to pamper dogs; a drama queen of a mother and a business-obsessed father who smokes three cigarettes at a time. After continuously trying to break into the film industry, Meenaxi finally settles for a job at an art college as a librarian. This is where she finds the love of her life, Surya– an art student played by South Indian star Prithviraj Sukumaran who wears an alluring cologne that Meenaxi is drawn to.

The largely humourless script was a let-down, especially because Aiyyaa at first glance seems like a comedy film. Despite creating some funny-looking characters, Kundalkar fails to generate any genuine humour; anything meant to be hilarious is either just way too obnoxious — especially for a Pakistani audience — or too colloquial, and better suited for South Indian society. The excessive use of jokes is a technique usually popular in South Indian films and is now creeping into mainstream Bollywood. Some of these new movies are creating two extremes in Bollywood, like Aarkshan — a movie in a Sanskritised version of Hindi –and like Aiyyaa, with South Indian accents and slang. We know that Indian norms and values have already penetrated in our households through the Indian media, especially through Star Plus, but that infiltration is accompanied by some entertainment as well. Bollywood entertainment has played a pivotal role in bringing our cinema-going culture back.

However, Aiyyaa is a case of needless cultural exhibition with a flawed story and an even weaker script. It fails to be a cultural souvenir or a half-decent film.  This is exactly why this new trend of South Indian narratives in Bollywood is not going to work in Pakistan. If there is one thing that works for Aiyyaa, it is that it is yet another splendid performance by Rani. Her antics get repetitive with time, but she still seems to have a hidden box of untapped acting and charisma left to explore. An Indian reviewer sums it perfectly, when he writes: “The director messes up a chance to let Rani’s inherent exuberance sing and dance across the length and breadth of the film’s canvas. He keeps placing the spontaneous actress into ridiculously compromised situations. It is to Rani’s credit that she survives all the bumps and belly aches that this weird yet watchable film serves up.”

It may be watchable for an Indian audience, but our audience here does not have an appetite for such cinema. It seems that the director wanted to satisfy personal nonsensical fantasies without keeping his audience in mind. People might call it an intentionally absurd film, but it is far worse.

Only the box office report will reveal whether Aiyyaa is a successful re-launch project for Rani. The rest of the cast members are there as supporting actors and don’t really add any sugar or spice to the story. The film has its highs, but mostly lows and a few funny moments, but they are rare. The story will drag and if you take your children, they will be horrified.

Verdict: Don’t cancel any appointments for this one.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2012.

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