Situations rather than slapstick make it worthwhile
BAREILLY KI BARFI Direction: Ashwini Iyer Tiwari Actors: Kriti Sanon, Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao Rating:
Bitti Mishra (Kriti Sanon) is a sharp tongued, easily agitated Bare illy girl. Her ‘breakdance’ is the highlight of local weddings. But she has a fatal flaw — she acts ‘like a boy’. Who will marry her, her mother frets.
Boys come to ‘see’ her, don’t like what they see, and leave. Her mother’s nagging is by now an endless stream.
Tired of it all, she runs away from home. We never really find out what her plans were for the rest of her life, because soon enough she reads a novel with a central character very much like her, and decides it will be her life’s mission to meet the writer.
It is while on this quest that she meets her two beaux, Chirag Dubey (Ayushmann Khurrana) tells Pr it am Vi dr o hi( Ra jk um mar Rao).
Back home, her mild-mannered dad (Pankaj Tripathi), a sweet shop owner, talks to a ceiling fan that remains mostly still thanks to Bareilly’s frequent power cuts.
Their one-way conversation is surprisingly funny. “Sushila se sandaas tak sab dikh raha hai (From Sushila to the toilet, I can see everything),” he shares with the fan at one point, after a stiff neck has eased.
Overall, the small-city feel really works; the place feels authentic, as do the dialogue and accents.
It’sinteresting to see Kriti shed her uber-urban image and try something new. Seem aP ahwa is convincing in the role of his shrill, brusque, marriage-obsessed schoolteacher wife Sushila.
But it is with the entry of the terrific Rajkummar Rao that Bareilly Ki Barfi really becomes interesting.
His transformation from a weakling salesman to a slick Romeo with a fl air for drama will leave you in splits. He and Ayu shmann makeup for the predict ability of the tale, but even so, it’s slow going. Once the premise has been laid out, everyone’s just waiting for the resolution.
Two of these three will take their love to a logical conclusion, in this case marriage; the third will excuse himself to cry in a corner and/ or deliver a heartfelt monologue at the end.
Still, Bareilly Ki Barfi is a sweet, light-hearted comedy that uses situations rather than slapstick, and this makes it worth a watch.