By: Omair Alavi Bollywood is not just about the Khans or high-budget flicks; Bareilly Ki Barfi proves that if your content is strong then nothing is impossible. The film has a script to be proud of especially in a time when no one takes script seriously. From a comedy of errors to a case of mistaken identity,…
SAMAA | Omair Alavi – Posted: Sep 4, 2017 | Last Updated: 4 years ago
By: Omair Alavi
Bollywood is not just about the Khans or high-budget flicks; Bareilly Ki Barfi proves that if your content is strong then nothing is impossible. The film has a script to be proud of especially in a time when no one takes script seriously. From a comedy of errors to a case of mistaken identity, this film has all the drills and thrills to make a low-budget comedy enter the big league.
The Plot
Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari’s film revolves around three characters, the main being Bitti (Kriti Sanon) who thinks the writer of a book title Bareilly Ki Barfi is his true life partner when it fact it was Chiragh Dubey (Ayushmann Khurrana) who has written it when his girlfriend got married to someone else. In order to keep the identity of his GF safe, Chiragh asked Pritam Virodhi (Rajkummar Rao) to become the author. Hence, Bitti falls in love with Pritam when it was Chiragh who should have been her true love and who gets who forms the crux of the plot.
The Good
Kirti Sanon announces her arrival with this flick as she does what she hasn’t done before in films – she didn’t copy Deepika for once and the result says it all. Ayushmann Khurrana bounces back from the failure of Meri Pyari Bindu and delivers a masterful performance as someone who deserves to be out of the friend zone but is stuck in it for his own doing. Rajkummar Rao’s character develops during the film and he gets to show his versatility as an actor; the scenes where he refuses to listen to his mentors or the one where he challenges them for Bitti’s hand are one of the best of the film. Thank God, Pankaj Tripathi gets to play his age after the Munna Michael debacle where he tried to pass on as a young man.
The Bad
There is hardly a dull moment in the film except when the characters are speaking Hindi, but trust me even then people in Pakistan understand and laugh at the joke – that’s called ‘going with the flow’. The timing of the film’s release was a little off as it came just 2 weeks prior to Eid ul Adha and had to be removed from the screens for a couple of days otherwise the continuous run would have given the cinema owners all the chance to screen the film despite tough competition from Pakistan.
Verdict – 4/5
BKB is not just another love story between three people; it’s a benchmark of how to make a film with no superstars. The way the director has handled the three leads is commendable; justice was done to Nitesh Tiwari and Shreyas Jain’s script as well. Not once did one find a boring moment in the movie otherwise, in films revolving around villages, people on our side of the border have least or no interest. This film along with Toilet: Ek Prem Katha might change it all!
