Tu Hai Mera Sunday - Reviews & BO Thread. - Page 10

Banner: Love and Faith Films

Producers: Varun Shah, Kawal Verma, Aruna Mehta

Director: Milind Dhaimade

Cast: Barun Sobti, Shahana Goswami, Vishal Malhotra, Avinash Tiwari, Nakul Bhalla, Jai Upadhyay, Rasika Duggal, Suhaas Ahuja, Pallavi Batra, Maanvi Gagroo

Writer: Milind Dhaimade

Music: Amartya Rahut

This slice-of-life film follows the lives of five friends, namely Arjun (Barun Sobti), Rashid (Avinash Tiwary), Dominic (Vishal Malhotra), Mehernosh (Nakul Bhalla), Jayesh (Jai Upadhyay), caught in the city's humdrum, seeking their escape through a ritualistic game of football every Sunday. This light-hearted film has more to offer than just football and explains the importance of cultivating our own happiness in life.

It is just like any other Sunday. The boys have their heads in the game when a senile old man barges into their match and kicks the football into the face of a socialite, who is in the middle of a press conference. The angry lady puts a blanket ban on playing football on Juhu beach. The men lose the only respite in their lives. Left with no activity to divert their minds, the men must confront their demons and embark on a quest to regain their own sanity.his slice-of-life film follows the lives of five friends, namely Arjun (Barun Sobti), Rashid (Avinash Tiwary), Dominic (Vishal Malhotra), Mehernosh (Nakul Bhalla), Jayesh (Jai Upadhyay), caught in the city's humdrum, seeking their escape through a ritualistic game of football every Sunday. This light-hearted film has more to offer than just football and explains the importance of cultivating our own happiness in life.

Arjun meets the senile old man's daughter Kavi (Shahana Goswami). They hit it off from the word go when Arjun graciously offers taking her appa (father) out for football every Sunday. Rashid, known as the womaniser among the pack, finds new interest in his neighbour Tashneem (Rasika Duggal) who alters the way he looks at life. As Dominic struggles to combat his domineering mother's wishful attempts to get him married, his brother Denise (Suhaas Ahuja) joins her to add more trouble to his already wrecked life. Mehernosh's crush Peppy (Pallavi Batra) brings drastic transformation in his life. Jayesh's plight of breaking free from his outnumbered family seems to be never-ending.

For the love of the sport the entire gang, along with their families, take a trip to Goa. This might sound like a run-of-the-mill, youth escapist film, but it isn't. The story centres on the subject of self-discovery. Some of the scenes, in bits and pieces, might seem to be falling out of place but that is most efficiently compensated with crisp dialogue and effortless story-telling.

This bunch of young guns, striving tenaciously to achieve the silver lining to all their odds, is a fresh take on the coming-of-age narrative. Director-writer Milind Dhaimade has beautifully brought his vision to life where each story portrays how our fast-fleeting urban life has forced the youth to move away from their adolescent selves and come to terms with reality. What forms the crux of the story is their attempt to withstand the test of their friendship and attain happiness in their own ways.

Music director Amartya Rahut has struck the right chord with his compositions. Shalmali Kholgade's Tu Hai Mera Sunday is a soulful number and Arijit Singh's Dhoondlo will make you sit and introspect in solitude. Yeh Mera Man by Ash King is plain nostalgia!

Performance-wise, Barun Sobti and Shahana Goswami's chemistry on screen is meticulous. Shahana's superlative performance is like a breath of fresh air. Shiv Subrahmanyam pulls off his character with an ever-so-nuanced performance. Jay Upadhyay does full justice to his character with his clever one-liners. All the characters are rooted and well-developed and this is what makes the entire cast give stellar performances.

Verdict: Worth a watch!

Tu Hai Mera Sunday

Movie Review: Once in a while in my long career as a movie fanatic I come across a sparkling gem that reminds me there's still so much to see, so many places to go , for Indian cinema. First-time feature filmmaker Milind Dhaimade takes us into places where we all have visited at one time or another.

Movie: Tu Hai Mera Sunday

Starring Barun Sobti, Shahana Goswami, Avinash Tiwari, Rasika Duggal, Nakul Bhalla, Pallavi Batra, VishalMalhotra, Jay Upadhyay, Shiv Subramaniam

Written & Directed by Milind Dhaimade

Rating: **** (4 and a half stars)

And I don't mean only Mumbai which like many memorable films stands a silent hero in this film about unsung heroism.

DhaimadeGod bless his creative juices that flow in the narrative like a stream gurgling through a craggy mountaintakes us to places in the heart where we go quite often in seclusion but don't really wish anyone else to know.The oddly entitled Tu Hai Mera Sunday is about working class yearnings, crushed dreams and smothered aspirations floating to the surface to confront the characters even as they conform to the stagnating status quo, loath to swim against the tides.

Some of the major characters, and there are so many of them all so vivid and relatable even in the briefest of roles, have serious meltdowns in unexpected moments. And if the others don't break down we know they are holding it all in . The cloudburst can happen any time.

It's the sunshine that director Dhaimade and his astounding cinematographer Harendra Singh focus on , but never at the cost of the darkness that lies beneath. The overbridge on which we first meet the five protagonists could be the ill-fated venue of tragedy that happened on Elphinstone Road in Mumbai recently.There are no traces of crisis where our heroes first appear . But then this is Mumbai.Everything changes in a jiffy.

It is this mix of mirth and melancholy that makes Tu Hai Mera Sunday one of the most precious slice-of-life films in recent times. The narrative shifts moods and tempo without disturbing the characters' journey and thought processes as they go from smothered anguish and despair to a celebration of life and related joys.

The core theme is the five protagonists' search for space to play their Sunday football game, an event that centralizes their scattered lives. Even as they grapple with personal issues, all delineated with remarkable fluidity and grace, the sportive spirit binds the five friends through personal pain and shared anguish .

Among this gem's many virtues the one quality that gives it an absolute stand-out stamp are the performances. I don't think I've seen a more accomplished complete and engaging ensemble cast in any film. Taken from theatre and television these are actors who haven't acquired the cocky arrogance of stardom . They breathe life into their characters even as the characters suffocate in the cramped polluted environment of Mumbai.

Each of the five protagonists is played memorably .It would be unfair to single any one performance, they are all so vividly in-character it doesn't feel like a camera construction at all.Shyam Salgaonkar edits the multitudinous characters and their rapidly mutating lives with a reined-in vigour. We realize these are people on the move. But the narrative won't humour pr heckle their with hecticity.

Adding substance to the performances is the care taken to write the characters into situations that contours their eccentricity in a city that disregards individuality and celebrates anonymity. We feel their unbearable darkness of being with a clarity that can only be defined by the darkness that surrounds these lives.

There is Arjun Anand whose relationship with Kavya grows when he starts babysitting her dementia-ridden father (Shiv Subramaniam). Barun Sobti and Shahana Goswami(who often reminds me of Kajol) play Arjun and Kavya with such warmth and candour it feels like they are a couple I know first-hand. Sure, their shared affinity is memorable. But the footloose womanizing Rashid(the very convincing Avinash Tiwary)'s growing closeness to the abandoned wife(Rasika Duggal, whose smile lights up every frame) and mother is equally compelling.

Both the romances plough persuasively into our hearts. As does the sulky musician Dominic(Vishal Malhotra)'s troubled relationship with his brother until his sunshiny sister-in-law-to-be(Manvi Gagroo)intervenes . And how can I forget the decent Parsi whitecollar boy Mehernosh(Nakula Bhalla) who can't bear to watch his office colleague Peppy(Pallavi Batra) being abused by their boss.

Finally there is Jayesh(Jay Upadhyay) the Gujarati businessman stifled by his commodious family's noisy religiosity. When Jayesh has a sudden meltdown we are unprepared for it. It's like that mouse in the randy Rashid's room which shows up to remind him of the disturbances that lie underneath the hard-earned calm and routine tenor of Mumbai.You can ignore the rats only as long as they don't eat into your urbane composure.

This is a film whose characters I carried with me long after the film was over. Every actor, including the unknown Rama Joshi who plays Vishal Malhotra's harried mother, and Meher Acharia-Dar who plays Arjun's sprightly temperamental sister ,is an unsung hero in this gem of a film that must be seen.

But if you ask me the one real hero that stands tallest in this film of looming achievements is the writing. The sharply but unobtrusively-drawn characters and the intriguingly spot-on situations and words that they exchange will have you wondering where you've met all these people before and eavesdropped on conversations that happened while you were travelling.

While you figure that out, please excuse me . I must see the film again.