'Dasvidaniya' - a bittersweet situational comedy (IANS Film Preview)

New Delhi, Nov 3 (IANS) It has been a while since viewers got to see a good situational comedy. And expectations are high from talented actor Vinay Pathak's first production venture 'Dasvidaniya', which releases Friday.

The actor-turned-producer had the viewers in splits in 'Bheja Fry' along with Rajat Kapoor and Ranvir Shorey.

Directed by first time filmmaker Shashant Shah, 'Dasvidaniya', which means good bye in Russian, is a bittersweet situational comedy that revolves around Amar Kaul (Vinay Pathak), whose existence is easily forgotten among the millions of people in Mumbai's ever-increasing population.

Amar, as a shy and quiet guy, lives a dull and monotonous life in the city and is almost non-existent to people around him. It is his obsession for making his daily to-do list every morning that keeps him motivated to look forward to another day in his life.

And then suddenly his doctor tells him that he will die within three months. Then begins a journey of a lifetime for Amar, where he sets out to write his final to-do list. He lists down 10 things he has to do before he dies and he feels the list would make his life worthy, before it actually ends.

As the countdown begins, Amar succeeds in fulfilling the final tasks on his wish list and in the course of doing them, he realises that he had actually been 'dead' despite being alive until now.

Amar is symbolic of all those people who have always wanted to do things but kept them on hold.

Thanks to changing tastes of viewers and the multiplex culture, experimental films have carved a niche for themselves and, going by the past performances of such films at the box office, 'Dasvidaniya' may succeed in entertaining people.