Bareilly Ki Barfi Movie Review and BO - Page 3

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Watching Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari's Bareilly Ki Barfi is like watching an Irish Drinking Song being performed for two plus hours.

This slender yet joyous film introduces so many fresh insanities and has such an endless stream of wisecracking -- full of rhymes, segues, and twisted phrases (stuff like Zor Ki Yaad) -- that it takes on shades of a running ballad

At one point, Kriti Sanon's Bitti Mishra expresses confidence that her fan letter would receive a reply, and as she says Aayega, you can see her doing a little puppet dance.

That shot is so inspired and yet it rushes past you at such a precise clip that it becomes giddily beautiful.

The script has an energy that seems to have sent all the actors over the rainbow and out they slide from the other end, with their characters' daze firmly fixed inside them.

Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari is a Lady Preston Sturges, and this film's breathless comic atmosphere, where everyone has something to say, coupled with its combustible energy, suggest the best of Sturges' screwball comedies.

As in a Preston Sturges movie, Bareilly Ki Barfi hardly breaks away from its wisecracks to offer you moralistic asides or stop to give itself heavyweight airs.

The characters are all always saying something wrong or inappropriate, and their double-takes and recoiling in disbelief are what give the film its crazy tone.

The jokes, a freakish marriage of insta-Hindi-shaayaris and romantic idealism, come out of left-field and they are over before you can even register them completely.

In the audience I watched the movie with, a Mexican wave of laughter often swelled up, with people explaining to those seated beside them what the last line or jabberwocky was, or what it meant, and as they explained it, another gem sprouted up in the interim, and was missed.

Bareilly Ki Barfi's streetwise attitude fits perfectly with its protagonist Bitti Mishra, who's too much in love with the supreme juices of life to pause and dwell over life.

An electricity board employee who walks into offices with her scooter helmet on, Kriti Sanon's character isn't pitched at the height of a rebel, but a hedonist -- she loves her addictions and they have become a part of her everyday routine.

Thankfully, the movie isn't out to worship her but to celebrate her spirit, and Sanon, with her face forever eyeing a discovery and rejoicing when she gets to one, gives a knockout performance.

It's a marvel that she looks like the Bitti Mishra-types, complete with her frizzy hair, dry lips, and partly worn-out sweaters.

Sanon and Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari work out the rambunctiousness of the character so perfectly that you miss her when she isn't around.

Her spirit pervades the whole movie.

Bitti has that tomboyish burp-after-beer swagger, but those patterns only gadroon her lady-like aspects -- like how she pokes her finger on someone's arm when she lapses into pleading.

The finest compliment one can pay to Sanon's performance and her character is that she makes herself worthy of all the madness she sets off and chances are high that you'll walk out of the theatre in love with her. 👏👏👏

In a world where people shout out their names complete with their last names, Bitti Mishra crosses path with Chirag Dubey (Ayushmann Khurrana), who has written a novel, the central character of which has the same deviltry as Bitti.

Dubey claims that the book -- which gives this film its title -- is a book written by tears; it's a second-rate roman-e-clef that he'd conceived after a serious heartbreak, and the Barfi of the book was meant to be a stand-in for his ex-girlfriend.

The book sells no copies, but when Bitti purchases it at a railway station and reads through it, she is astonished at how well she has been described and decoded.

She doesn't say it, but the book saves her life and botches her attempt to escape from home -- which also happens to be the home of such incredible actors as Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Bhargava who play Bitti's parents and who threaten to spin this movie off into their personal little world of she snoring in her sleep and he (Tripathi) spelling out all his dreams to a slow-moving ceiling fan.

Bhargava and Tripathi are so good here that they stake claim for a movie of their own.

Tripathi's face and manner becomes the perfect advertisement for his sweet shop and his puffed mouth, perpetually trying to keep his paan from spilling out, gives his face the quality of a memorable gargoyle that he carries around with him.

Seema Bhargava, as the moral science teacher who settles down into sharbat and tea making when at home, has rapturous scenes with both Tripathi (one look at the couple and you get the colourless history they share) and with Sanon.

The mother-daughter rat-a-tats with all their manic-depressiveness are genuinely felt and never overdone, and for this dynamic especially, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari seems to be using up material from her own life (there's something weirdly personal about those bits).

At any rate, the book that changes Bitti Mishra's life is only ghosted by Dubey, with its authorship being assigned to a sad-sack named Pritam Vidrohi (Rajkummar Rao).

In the reality of the narrative, Bitti wants to meet Vidrohi, but Dubey can't reveal that he is the true author of the book.

And so he whips up a sadistic haiku.

The nifty premise of Dubey turning the catatonic Vidrohi into a thug -- he coaches him into it -- so that Vidrohi can break Bitti's heart is perhaps the plot point that Bareilly ki Barfi scoops out of Nicolas Barreau's The Ingredients of Love, but this movie is its own beast -- drunk up on an entirely original magic potion.

Both Khurrana and Rao are terrific physical performers, and they tune into each other's timing like two improv-comedians helping each other polish their act.

Ayushmann Khurrana often gets far less credit than what he deserves, and that's maybe because his performances are always carved out as ideal foils for those around him.

One of our most generous actors, Khurrana, here again, sets up the stage for his co-actors to play off him and flower.

His understanding of small-town mindsets goes beyond just the intonations -- it's also visible in the way he finishes off his kulfi and blurts out 'Khaathey Main Jod Lo' before the last slurp can go down.

Even as he turns puppy faced for Sanon's Bitti, Khurrana doesn't make his character an innocent puppy.

With his best friend in tow, he plays cruel little games on Rao's Pritam Vidrohi. While they are constantly putting Vidrohi's life on the line to further their own plans, they also derive pleasure out of using him almost as their personal Gimp.

Rajkummar Rao's uninhibited comic performance as Pritam Vidrohi feels like an act of the Method Actor tapping into his favourite playlist.

Sliding in and out of his Mama's Boyish-ness, Rao shoots the film sky high every time he appears onscreen.

This is the Method Actor making you aware of his process while playing a character whose dignity depends on how well he method acts.

Sweet nothings

Bareilly Ki Barfi

Rating:

August 18, 2017

Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kriti Sanon, Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Seema Pahwa, Rohit Choudhury, Swati Semwal

Director: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari

Bareilly Ki Barfi is what you'd get if you took Saajan and gave it the Basu Chatterjee or Sai Paranjpye treatment. It's a sweet, inoffensive romantic comedy based on a slim premise, but buoyed by strong performances, the unmistakable charm and texture of small-town India, and garnished with moments of crackling humor.

Director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari transports the viewer to the bustling by-lanes of Bareilly where we meet our protagonist Bitti Mishra (Kriti Sanon), a free-spirited young girl who could well be a distant cousin of Kangana Ranaut's character Tanu from the first Tanu Weds Manu film. Bitti is the complete antithesis of the small-town girl as depicted in most Hindi movies. She sneaks off and smokes cigarettes, rides pillion with the boys in the neighborhood, and routinely puts off prospective grooms by refusing to play the coy virginal clich.

One of the small joys of this film is the relationship between Bitti and her father, a sweetshop owner (Pankaj Tripathi), who has raised her with all the freedom he'd give to a son. Unlike her permanently exasperated mother (Seema Pahwa) who is having a hard time reconciling with her rebellious spirit, Daddy Dearest lets her fly. A voice-over by Javed Akhtar describes the family as a zany, eccentric bunch but the irony is that in their very oddities and contradictions they're your average Indian family.

The plot kicks into motion when Bitti chances upon a pulpy novel and discovers that the feisty heroine is a lot like her. Thrilled that there's someone out there who understands and appreciates her kind, Bitti becomes obsessed with tracking down the author, a fella named Pritam Vidrohi. For this she enlists the help of printing press owner Chirag Dubey (Ayushmann Khurrana), who, in fact, is the real author of the book.

You see, Chirag banged out the novel while struggling with heartbreak and bullied his friend Pritam (Rajkummar Rao) into putting his name and photograph on it. Now clearly smitten by Bitti, Chirag forcibly coaches the mild-mannered Pritam into behaving like an arrogant oaf in order to repel Bitti and clear the path to her heart for himself.

The film's script, by Nitesh Tiwari and Shreyas Jain, bubbles with situational humor and terrific one-liners. The writers evoke a strong sense of place, rooting the story and the characters in a landscape that's both rich and real. For a film so specific in texture, the casting of the supporting players is crucial, and Pankaj Tripathi and Seema Pahwa shine as Bitti's parents, while Rohit Choudhary is very good too as Chirag's devoted best friend Munna. Yet the plot itself is thin and frankly predictable; hence much of the film feels stretched, particularly in the first hour. Too much screen-time is committed to establishing Chirag's growing feelings for Bitti. We get it.

Bareilly Ki Barfi really takes flight with the arrival of Pritam, whose transformation into a boorish lout gives the film some of its best moments. Rajkummar Rao is in superb form, and pretty much chews up the scenery each time he's on the screen. His performance is in all in the little touches: the accent, the body language, slipping from the soft-spoken Pritam to the obnoxious rangbaaz'. He's got it all down to the last detail.

Ayushmann Khurrana holds up well too, although it's a familiar role for him, having played both shades of Chirag cunning North Indian fixer' and doomed romantic a few times already.

At the center of this love triangle is Bitti, and it's easily Kriti Sanon's most fleshed-out character yet. She's sincere and throws herself into the part, but the rawness shows. The accent and the lines don't roll off her tongue quite as naturally, and Kriti never feels entirely convincing as the small-town-bred firecracker.

There is a lot to enjoy here but the script contrivances rankle. This is a movie that works on account of the trimmings: the acting, the clap-trap dialogues, and the authentic texture of the world that it's set in. If only there was more meat to the main dish. Nevertheless, Bareilly Ki Barfi is appropriately sweet and not a bad way at all to spend two hours. I'm going with three out of five.

Bareilly Ki Barfi Movie Review: Kriti Sanon Makes This Sweet Concoction Work