Film Aiyyaa
Star Cast: Rani Mukerji, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Nirmiti Sawant, Amey Wagh
Director: Sachin Kundalkar
Rani Mukherjee told this film would be one of her best, but long gone are the days when an actor said that their film would be something new, and the movie actually turned out to be worth the money. In fact Aiyyaa will be a huge displeasure for Rani and Anurag Kashyap's fans. It is hard to believe that Rani, who has won awards for critically acclaimed roles said yes to the movie. And what made Anurag Kashyap, who is the producer of the movie, think that a movie that has a female lead going head over heels for a man just because of his odour, would work at the box office?
The story sounds pretty funny as a concept, but the jokes hardly work. Meenakshi Deshpande (Rani Mukherjee) is a middle class Marathi girl, a librarian at a college. She has five members in her family: A wheelchair bound grandmother who is blind, her father who smokes four cigarettes together, her mother who is obsessed with marriage, and her brother who's only love in life is dogs. To escape the craziness of her family, Rani lives her life in dreams, and in her dreams the only thing she's doing is dancing and enacting her favorite actresses, Sridevi, Juhi etc. Then there is Maina, Rani's best friend, who managed to thoroughly annoy everyone in the theater this writer was watching Aiyyaa in. The less said about her the better.
Meenakshi's family are looking for a suitable groom but Meenakshi, who doesn't believe in arranged marriages, is waiting for her prince and wants her dream marriage. That's when South Superstar Surya (Prithviraj) enters. Surya is an art student, and the moment Meenakshi looks at him she falls in love with his tanned skin and body odour. Yes, you read that right. Body odour. By this time her family have found the 'right guy' Maadhav (Subodh Bhave) for her, and are rushing with her marriage. The rest of the movie involves Madhav running around after Meenakshi, and Meenakshi following Surya.
The whole movie revolves around Rani Mukherjee, but there is some dissatisfaction here too. Viewers expecting and encore of her livewire performance in No One Killed Jessica may be disappointed, but the fault lies more with the story than with Rani. You can see that she has put in all effort but there is little that can save this movie. Prithviraj and Subodh hardly have a role in the movie but maybe because Prithviraj is a huge megastar in the south he gets to mouth a few lines in the end. Subodh, as the simple guy Madhav, has even lesser to do than Prithviraj.
On the whole, Aiyyaa has some good moments, almost all provided by Rani Mukherjee, and all of them in the first half but Aiyyaa's tale and film length could have used a helping hand. The item songs live up to their billing and Rani has performed the best belly dance this side of the Arabian Sea.
In general, it is worthy to watch once.
