After all the praise and hype I had heard about the movie , the experience was underwhelming....
Worse , P Jani/Jagmohan ( a blogger like myself who writes movie reviews on the internet using various IDs ) revealed the ending in his review , and I already knew what was going to happen....no surprises were in store for me as the movie progressed . That further reduced my enjoyment of the movie . Had I not known the ending , I would have certainly felt some emotion at what happened at the end of the movie . And that would have made me like the movie more . This P Jani talks too much on the internet....is he like the character of Amitabh in Piku ??
For Amitabh talks too much too---does not care about the other persons feelings....diplomacy is not his forte , not by a long way....
He openly chides the owner of the taxi company from whom he has hired a taxi ( Irfan Khan ) about having put his father on ventilator on doctor's advice , claiming that it causes suffering for the patient . He deliberately tells suitors of his daughter named Piku that his daughter has slept with men and that she is not a virgin . And he is talking about his bowel movements for all the hours he is awake....no not 24 hours like I was tempted to call it , for he must be sleeping some of the time....
To all those reviewers who have been saying that piku's dialogues are like everyday conversation , how many old men ( however eccentric and modern they are ) talk about their daughter's sex life like this so openly ?? And some people's lives do centre around bowel movements , but how many of them talk nothing else ?? Not too many....
The daughter ( Deepika Padukone ) is supposed to be eccentric too , judging from the fact that Irfan's taxi drivers are reluctant to drive her to work . But the fact that she puts up with her father's oddities and loves him inspite of them , makes her character more endearing . Or is supposed to make it more endearing . Whatever...
Deepika is supposed to be this liberated female , empowered and all that---but all that is happening because she is cushioned by her father's money , lives in a big house , has slave like servants and yes men ( yes, even Delhi men are reduced to yes men in the movie ) at her beck and call , and has drivers drive her to work ( forget travelling by public transport , she does not even like to drive her own car ).....with such comforts , empowerment is easy....
So this old coot and his goodlooking daughter decide to go to Calcutta from Delhi by private taxi , and because Irfan's drivers refuse to drive them , it is upto Irfan to drive them all the way---a task that he is only too willing to do , since he is shamelessly attracted to Deepika....
So he refuses to drive till Deepika sits besides him , and then the journey starts....interspersed by endless yak yak about constipation and consistency of stools and all that . Amitabh carries a chair with a hole in it for the bowel programme , until Irfan teaches him a novel method of going to latrine---that of sitting 'Indian style' on a western commode....
The talk about colour of stools and frequency of going to WC between the three was so much that I felt that at some point I would be able to smell the smell of Amitabh's excreta in the theatre---fortunately that didn't happen....
And the talk was giving some entertainment to me as well as the audience , as was the chemistry between Irfan and Deepika .
There are some genuine moments when the affection between Amitabh and Deepika is brought out , and some fun is created by the bowel habits of Amitabh . You do go into a relaxed state where you like the flow of the film and wish the journey from Delhi to Calcutta would never end....
There are other liberated women in the movie too , like Maushami Chatterjee who has had three marriages and jokingly asks Irfan for a fourth...
It is the ending that really delivers on the emotional part , and the emotion is towards the climax and not in the motion ( whether loose or hard ) as the movie's title suggests....
Music is good , songs are truly hummable ( though all of them are in the background and not shown to be sung by the characters , in tune with the 'realistic' touch of the movie ) and photography is good too---of course, good photography is part of all films nowadays . Acting by everyone is great , but Amitabh is still the best...
The audience in the theatre was liking the film even more than I did , and I can sense a money spinner at the box office . Even I did get some entertainment and was glad to have seen it .
Verdict--decent .
Three stars .
Worse , P Jani/Jagmohan ( a blogger like myself who writes movie reviews on the internet using various IDs ) revealed the ending in his review , and I already knew what was going to happen....no surprises were in store for me as the movie progressed . That further reduced my enjoyment of the movie . Had I not known the ending , I would have certainly felt some emotion at what happened at the end of the movie . And that would have made me like the movie more . This P Jani talks too much on the internet....is he like the character of Amitabh in Piku ??
For Amitabh talks too much too---does not care about the other persons feelings....diplomacy is not his forte , not by a long way....
He openly chides the owner of the taxi company from whom he has hired a taxi ( Irfan Khan ) about having put his father on ventilator on doctor's advice , claiming that it causes suffering for the patient . He deliberately tells suitors of his daughter named Piku that his daughter has slept with men and that she is not a virgin . And he is talking about his bowel movements for all the hours he is awake....no not 24 hours like I was tempted to call it , for he must be sleeping some of the time....
To all those reviewers who have been saying that piku's dialogues are like everyday conversation , how many old men ( however eccentric and modern they are ) talk about their daughter's sex life like this so openly ?? And some people's lives do centre around bowel movements , but how many of them talk nothing else ?? Not too many....
The daughter ( Deepika Padukone ) is supposed to be eccentric too , judging from the fact that Irfan's taxi drivers are reluctant to drive her to work . But the fact that she puts up with her father's oddities and loves him inspite of them , makes her character more endearing . Or is supposed to make it more endearing . Whatever...
Deepika is supposed to be this liberated female , empowered and all that---but all that is happening because she is cushioned by her father's money , lives in a big house , has slave like servants and yes men ( yes, even Delhi men are reduced to yes men in the movie ) at her beck and call , and has drivers drive her to work ( forget travelling by public transport , she does not even like to drive her own car ).....with such comforts , empowerment is easy....
So this old coot and his goodlooking daughter decide to go to Calcutta from Delhi by private taxi , and because Irfan's drivers refuse to drive them , it is upto Irfan to drive them all the way---a task that he is only too willing to do , since he is shamelessly attracted to Deepika....
So he refuses to drive till Deepika sits besides him , and then the journey starts....interspersed by endless yak yak about constipation and consistency of stools and all that . Amitabh carries a chair with a hole in it for the bowel programme , until Irfan teaches him a novel method of going to latrine---that of sitting 'Indian style' on a western commode....
The talk about colour of stools and frequency of going to WC between the three was so much that I felt that at some point I would be able to smell the smell of Amitabh's excreta in the theatre---fortunately that didn't happen....
And the talk was giving some entertainment to me as well as the audience , as was the chemistry between Irfan and Deepika .
There are some genuine moments when the affection between Amitabh and Deepika is brought out , and some fun is created by the bowel habits of Amitabh . You do go into a relaxed state where you like the flow of the film and wish the journey from Delhi to Calcutta would never end....
There are other liberated women in the movie too , like Maushami Chatterjee who has had three marriages and jokingly asks Irfan for a fourth...
It is the ending that really delivers on the emotional part , and the emotion is towards the climax and not in the motion ( whether loose or hard ) as the movie's title suggests....
Music is good , songs are truly hummable ( though all of them are in the background and not shown to be sung by the characters , in tune with the 'realistic' touch of the movie ) and photography is good too---of course, good photography is part of all films nowadays . Acting by everyone is great , but Amitabh is still the best...
The audience in the theatre was liking the film even more than I did , and I can sense a money spinner at the box office . Even I did get some entertainment and was glad to have seen it .
Verdict--decent .
Three stars .
