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Release date:
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March 24, 2017
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Director:
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Anshai Lal
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Cast:
Language:
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Anushka Sharma,
Diljit Dosanjh, Suraj Sharma, Mehreen Pirzada
Hindi with Punjabi
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Early in Phillauri, an alcohol-swilling old woman
with obviously dyed, jet black hair tells her grayhead of a son that he was the
result of a single peg of booze. It is a funny remark, of course, yet one you
might shrug off if you think of the number of Hindi films in recent years that
have seen alcohol, cigarettes, swear words and sex talk from women as the sole
harbingers of progressiveness, and the number of filmmakers who have used these
props to mask their deeply entrenched patriarchal notions of womanhood while
pretending to be forward-thinking.
Over an hour later
though, a character in the film tells a woman that a man is worthy of her, not
because of his social status, but because he treated her with genuine respect
and honour. It is then you know for sure that Anshai Lal’s Phillauri is not merely faking it. The director along with writer
Anvita Dutt have struck at the heart of what true equality means. And what a
relief that is.
Phillauri belongs to the love-aaj-and-kal genre, with
the story of Kanan and Anu in 2017 told parallel to the pre-Independence tale
of Shashi and Roop. Kanan (Suraj Sharma) has just completed his studies in
Canada and is now in Punjab to marry his childhood sweetheart Anu (debutant
Mehreen Pirzada). Much against his wishes he fulfills the family elders’ wishes
by marrying a tree to overcome his manglik
dosh. Since the ghost of Shashi (Anushka Sharma) from a bygone era resides in that tree, Kanan ends up unknowingly becoming
her groom.
The pretty spook is
now stuck with him. His commitment phobia combined with the fact that only he
can see Shashi ends up creating confusion in his relationship with Anu as D-day
inches towards them.
Is Shashi real or
is she a figment of Kanan’s weed-addled imagination? Who knows. What we do know
is that while Shashi’s sepia-toned affair with the popular local singer Roop
(Diljit Dosanjh) unfolds in Punjab’s Phillaur town, Kanan clears up his muddled
head and figures out precisely what he wants from life.
On the face of it,
the apparition in Phillauri is a tool
to take a comparative look at romance then and now. Yet, with its gentle
allusions to India’s colonial history, social attitudes towards artists and
women’s autonomy, the film becomes more than just that. It is, of course, a
bemused swipe at regressive customs and those who follow them without
conviction or understanding. It is a comment on how even now, gifted women are
often fronted by men with half their talent because ambition is deemed a dirty
word for women.
Most of all though,
it is a reminder that the human lives lost in any tragedy are not mere
statistics, but real people who died with goals yet unattained and dreams yet
unfulfilled.
All this takes a
while to sink in though because Lal takes too long to get to the point. Too
many Hindi films are lost to the curse of the second half. Fortunately for Phillauri, its affliction is the exact
opposite. The pre-interval portion is too stretched out and, after the initial
engaging, humorous few minutes, becomes as pale as Shashi’s ghostly presence.
More time than
required is spent with Kanan and Shashi together. Suraj has just one expression on his face throughout this
segment and Anushka is a shadow of her usually charismatic self. Besides, their
equation is far less interesting than Kanan-Anu and Shashi-Roop.
Of the two couples,
the old-world pair has way more substance and novelty value than the two
youngsters from the 21st century. It is no wonder then that Phillauri truly comes into its own post
interval when it devotes itself primarily to Shashi and Roop’s romance which is
at once uplifting and heart-wrenching, thus rendering even the needlessly
elongated climax forgivable. The resonance and relevance of their story in
modern times is this film’s selling point.
The other USP of Phillauri is its music and the way it is
used to recount a large part of Shashi and Roop’s love saga. Music director Shashwat Sachdev
and lyricist Anvita Dutt deserve kudos in particular for the beautiful song Sahiba – a reference to the legend of Mirza
and Sahibaan which serves as a red herring of sorts here – in Romy and Pawni
Pandey’s lovely voices. Lal deserves a big salaam
for how this number has been woven into the narrative to such soul-stirring
effect.
As with Imtiaz
Ali’s Love Aaj Kal in 2009, the past
has more appeal in this film too. One reason of course is the eternal poignance
of what-might-have-beens and the challenge of that inevitable question: how
might I have functioned or even survived in a regressive, claustrophobic era gone by? That alone does not explain Phillauri’s split personality though.
In terms of
writing, directorial execution and acting, yesterday has zest and today does not in this inconsistent albeit sweet
spook story.
Rating
(out of five stars): **1/2
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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137 minutes 58 seconds
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This
review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillauri_(film)
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