7 Reasons Piku Is A Soaring Success While Bombay Velvet Failed To Make An Impact
Nobody actually thought it was a clash or anything when Deepika Padukone'sPiku and Ranbir Kapoor's Bombay Velvet released back to back, with just a week's gap in between. While Shoojit Sircar's Piku was a female oriented, emotional film on a father-daughter relationship, Anurag Kashyap's Bombay Velvet looked like a hardcore Bollywood flick with drama, romance, and action, all set in the 60s. And while Piku had a meagre budget of almost 38 crores, Bombay Velvet created waves because of the very fact that it was made with a grand budget of 100 crores!
While Piku seemed like it would do well, we all had huge expectations fromBombay Velvet, simply because of the scale with which it was made, and the gigantic amount of publicity its actors and makers were indulging in. Only, the audience's expectations weren't met. On the other hand, Piku managed to perform exceedingly well and garnered much love from the audience too.
Even though we know that there was tons of hard work that went into makingBombay Velvet, and that there are cinema enthusiasts who'd have loved the film, broadly it failed to live up to the hype. So what went wrong? Check out these 7 reasons why Piku soared at the box office and connected with the audience, and Bombay Velvet (BV) managed neither.
1. Piku was based on reality, while BV looked somewhat exaggerated in every sphere.
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Exactly. Piku was a film that portrayed the story of a family that could be anybody's in today's metropolitan Indian cities, even yours or mine. That's exactly why it had such a huge connect with the audience - they could relate to it. On the other hand, people are doubtful of whether the makers have shown an authentic Bombay of the 60s in Bombay Velvet. In fact, the entire film is heavily inspired by the American film noir culture, which the Indian audience clearly doesn't have a taste for.
2. Piku was an emotional drama, yet not overtly dramatic. BV was a period/crime/romantic/drama flick.
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Piku was about a father-daughter relationship, which of course, in any society is a very emotional relationship. Yet Piku did not depict it in the typical Bollywood style of being overtly dramatic. In fact, it showed an amazingly realistic and modern relationship between a father and a daughter, definitely a lot more believable and relatable for today's audience. Conversely, BV was a mix of a period film, romance, drama, and crime in a 60s Bombay, about which today's generation has no idea. Neither was BV about a prominent historic event that our generation might have read about in books. So basically, there is nothing to relate to.
3. Piku's story had a flow in it, and was short and crisp. But audiences have been complaining that BV was way too long and way too slow.
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A two-and-a-half-hour movie in today's time is definitely considered long, and BV was just it. And Piku was the exact opposite - a cutesy, short tale that ended well in around two hours. Moreover, Piku had a flow, one event after the other, everything connected to the event preceding it. But the audience has been complaining that BV is too much drama, emotion, and action, all at once.
4. The portrayal of a Bong family living in Delhi is spot on in Piku, while people have been raising questions on whether BV depicted an authentic version of Bombay in the the 60s.
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Amitabh Bachchan playing as an old Bengali man in Delhi's CR Park, and Deepika Padukone playing a young, urban Bengali girl in Delhi, nailed their characters to the T. The way they behaved with each other, and with their extended family and friends, was pretty realistic. It seemed like one was not watching a movie, but was instead peeping into a friend's life. On the other hand, BV's Bombay of the 60s was way too modern, right? Jazz clubs, Rosie dressing up as if it were an American Jazz club, Johnny using all those fancy imported guns, men dressing up like they're straight out of Leonardo DiCaprio's The Great Gatsby, it was all a bit too imaginary!
5. Piku was subtle in every sense of the word, while everything in BV was over the top and unreal.
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One very different and interesting thing about Piku was that it portrayed Deepika and Irrfan's characters' relationship very subtly. There was a slight hint of a romantic angle, but there wasn't a full blown romantic plot in the movie per se. In fact, even at the end of the movie, Shoojit kept their relationship rather friendly than giving it a romantic angle. Which is really refreshing to see in a Bollywood flick. But BV was overloaded with emotions, love, treachery, drama, jealousy, and what not. Which could also be a good thing, but somehow it just didn't click with the audience as much as Piku's subtlety did.
6. In fact, Piku dealt with a pretty relevant social issue of kids not sticking around with their old parents.
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BV was a typical Bollywood potboiler. There're people in love, there's a villain trying to pull them apart, then there's money involved, and boom! You have your blockbuster Hindi pichar! But Piku rather picked up a social issue in the movie's background, and showed that even though Deepika's character is miffed with her elderly father's tantrums, she's willing to go to any extent to take care of him. In fact, her character is totally comfortable not getting married so that she can stay back and take care of her father.
7. Piku gave the audience something totally new to see. And what BV had, has been seen a ton of times in Bollywood before.
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BV's major plot was something we have seen a lot of times in Bollywood movies before - boy and girl are in love, villain tries to break them apart, there's big money involved simply because the hero is poor and wants to make it big for his ladylove. Deja Vu much? So of course, the audience is bound to not find anything new in it. Agreed, the sets, the costumes, the detailing, everything was extremely well done in BV. But ultimately it's the story the average audience is interested in. And Piku delivered exactly that. Period.
So while Bombay Velvet may have been a great lesson on how to literally make a movie, production-wise, and cinema enthusiasts and artsy people may be able to admire it, Piku delivered for our average audience because it was a heartfelt film, a slice of life drama the audience could relate to.
http://www.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/7-reasons-piku-is-a-soaring-success-while-bombay-velvet-failed-to-make-an-impact-232801.html
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