Release date:
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September 12, 2014
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Director:
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Homi Adajania
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Cast:
Language:
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Deepika Padukone,
Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Pankaj Kapur, Arjun Kapoor, Anjali Patil,
Anand Tiwari, Cameo: Ranveer Singh
English (A Hindi
version has also been released.)
|
After a sparkling debut with Being Cyrus, director Homi Adajania unexpectedly betrayed a penchant
for stereotyping with his disappointing take on the Christian woman and neurotic
spinsterhood in his second film Cocktail.
It was with trepidation then that I entered the hall to watch his latest film, Finding Fanny. Would it continue Bollywood’s
notorious typecasting of Goan Christians as a semi-foreign bunch of male drunkards
and female cabaret dancers speaking the “hum
God se pray karta hai” kind of Hinglish?
As it turns out, whatever else it may or may not be
faulted for, Finding Fanny cannot be accused
of a reductive portrayal of Goans. For the moment, let’s forget the fact that Hindi
cinema as a whole is yet to acknowledge the existence of Goan Hindus or of
sari-wearing Goan Christian women. Before that stage of evolution can be
reached, here comes Finding Fanny, a
film that thankfully does not follow the Bollywood tradition of caricaturing this
community.
Sadly, that’s not enough. Finding Fanny is quirky in parts, funny some of the time, and has a
wonderful cast. But by the end of it all, the film feels too lightweight and
too flimsy to matter.
Welcome though to sleepy Pocolim in Goa. On the
surface, this fictional village appears to epitomise the fabled susegad, the contentment that lies at
the heart of the state’s culture. We discover along the way though, that there
are unfulfilled dreams and desires and long-held secrets simmering below the
surface.
We are introduced to the film’s five leading
characters in the voice of young Angie (Deepika Padukone), a beautiful widow of
six years who shares a warm equation with her gorgeous and curiously husbandless
mother-in-law Rosie (Dimple Kapadia), the local queen bee. Angie’s best friend
is the elderly postmaster, choirboy and child-man Ferdie (Naseeruddin Shah). Their
lives take off in a whole new direction when a letter Ferdie sent to the love
of his life – Stefanie Fernandes a.k.a. Fanny – is returned to him after 46
years. Angie urges him to find Fanny, and reveal his unrevealed feelings to
her. For their mission, she is compelled to rope in ma-in-law, the artist Don
Pedro (Pankaj Kapur) and her childhood friend Savio (Arjun Kapoor); because
Savio is the only one among them who can drive, Pedro owns a car, and the
unwitting Rosie’s company on the road trip is essential as bait to coax him
into lending them that vehicle.
Clearly the film is aiming at whimsy, a quality so
smoothly achieved in Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel that was recently in Indian theatres. Finding Fanny doesn’t have enough
substance to achieve its goal though. It is not entirely consistent in its
characterisation either. That outburst by Rosie against Savio, for instance – did
it not imply animosity towards Angie, who she clearly loves? Is it fathomable
that sweet, protective Angie would pimp Rosie to the discomfortingly lustful Pedro?
And why are we expected to be amused by that lecherous chap?
Pankaj as Pedro over-acts to the point of making
you wonder why he is routinely described by critics as “one of Bollywood’s most
under-rated actors”. When he is good, he can be lovely – as he was in last
year’s Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola and
in Bhavna Talwar’s brilliant 2007 film Dharm
– but when he is not, he can be painfully repetitive and/or OTT, which is how
he is here. The forever-stunning Dimple too has a couple of overdone moments in
the film, but it’s hard to hold that against her when she’s clearly enjoying the
role. Besides, overall she shows more depth in Finding Fanny than she has got a chance to display through most of
her career so far. She immerses herself in her character, as does Naseer whose
loveable babe-in-the-woods turn here has more conviction than we see from him
in most commercial films these days.
Notwithstanding how Finding Fanny has turned out, it’s a sign of our interesting times that
hard-core commercial stars Deepika and Arjun signed up for this evidently experimental
venture. Arjun has been growing with each film and proves, especially in that
scene in which he ticks off Rosie, that he has what it takes to lose himself in
a role. Deepika looks angelic, is attractively but simply turned out, and is
completely natural before the camera. She does laidback very well, although Angie’s
internal conflicts are not conveyed quite as effectively either by her acting
or the writing. Still, the actress reminds us why she is widely considered one
of mainstream Bollywood’s best talents in a late-night scene in a field, during
a conversation with Savio that is far more casual than you would expect considering
the circumstances – so casual, in fact, that it’s a hoot. It’s the best-written
scene in the film and both stars shine in it.
The delightful music of Finding Fanny is a perfect fit. Composed by Mathias Duplessy, it is woven seamlessly into the narrative to complement
the mood of the film and cinematographer Anil Mehta’s picture-postcard images
of the pretty Goan countryside.
“Fanny” is used by Indian English speakers as slang
for the bottom. In some places though, it mean a woman’s genitals. Adajania’s
overt reason for using the word in the title is the search for Ferdie’s lady
love. However, he seems to be having a chuckle with this naming game, playing simultaneously
on Angie’s and possibly Freddie’s virginity, Rosie’s expansive buttocks and
Pedro’s paintings of grotesquely voluptuous women reminiscent of the legendary
Goan painter Francis Newton Souza’s canvases and to a lesser extent, Goan
cartoonist Mario Miranda’s buxom ladies. Errr… So who exactly is “finding
fanny” in this story? Now if only the film was as substantial as Rosie’s
derriere or had as much depth as the connotations of its name...
Rating
(out of five stars): **
CBFC Rating (India):
|
U/A
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Running time:
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105 minutes
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Photograph courtesy: Effective Communication
