Just a week back, I was profusely praising Anurag Kashyap for his brilliant performance in "Imaikka Nodigal" & the maestro was back this week in his director's apparel for "Manmarziyaan". From the trailer, it was
kinda evident that it’s quite unlike what Anurag has worked with in the past
& that in itself excited me further. Interestingly, the movie featured
Abhishek Bachchan who is back after a two-year break (“to re-energise” as per
what he said; hmm, so it wasn’t due to lack of movies???). Anywaz his success
rate as a solo hero has been patchy, pretty much like Sri Lanka’s abysmal
record since Sanga & Mahela retired. So, will his movie follow the fate of
the Lankans in the Asia Cup???
Rumi (Taapsee Pannu) is an
attractive, bold & free-spirited Punjabi kudi who was madly in love with
the equally crazy & bindaas Vicky Sandhu (Vicky Kaushal). The latter was a
DJ who aspired for a successful music career though he didn’t seem to work hard
for it, while Rumi oversaw her family’s sports goods store. Their affair was
known to everyone in the locality & her family after having caught them goofing
around started searching alliances for her. However, Rumi’s adamancy forces
them to offer some time to her, so that Vicky could seek his folks’ permission
to ask her hand in marriage. But with Vicky being apprehensive of commitment,
Rumi decided to tie the knot with Robbie Bhattia (Abhishek Bachchan), a UK
based banker that her family had chosen for her. The question was whether Rumi & Vicky
could forget everything & get on with their new lives or will Robbie be
handed out a raw deal???
Nowadays, we hardly come
across directors who works in more than two projects in a single year &
interestingly, “Manmarziyaan”
happened to be Anurag’s third directorial venture this year after “Mukkabaaz” & “Lust Stories”. Unlike his previous movies, this hasn’t been
scripted by him as it was by Kanika Dhillon who had earlier written the
screenplay for “Ra One” & “Size Zero” (Telugu/Tamil). It might
sound odd, but I felt like this was the 2018 version of “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” with carnal instincts being more prominent.
Despite having a running time of 155 minutes, it still manages to keep us
engaged for large portions especially in the first half. Apart from Anurag’s
decent direction & Sylvester Fonseca’s visuals, there are two major reasons
which makes this movie work & those are the cast as well as Amit Trivedi’s
excellent music. The latter has undoubtedly produced the best soundtrack among
all the movies that has released this year.
Ever since “Pink” released a couple of years back,
Taapsee has consistently impressed with her choice of scripts & praise
worthy performances. She was brilliant as the vivacious Rumi & should be in
pole position to claim a couple of awards for the best actress. Equally
impressive was Vicky Kaushal who floored me yet again after “Sanju” & has been consistently
churning out good performances. Last but not the least, Abhishek has done a
fine job as well with his ability to convey emotions convincingly through expressions.
The rest of the cast have all also done their parts aptly.
Verdict:
As
per the latest box offices, the film made credible collections over the opening
weekend making it the biggest in Anurag’s career (who usually barely make it
beyond 10 C). I don’t think it will make much of an impact on the single
screens & will have to depend on multiplexes for the revenue. However, it’s
worth a watch & I would suggest that you guys should give it a try!!!
Rating: 2.75/5
Regards…Ben
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