• Review: Khari Biscuit
• Director : Sanjay Jadhav
• Star Cast: Miss Vedashree Khadilkar, Master Adarsh Kadam, Nandita Patkar & Sushant Shelar
• Story, Screenplay & Dialogues: Sanket Mane, Sachin Mote & Chetan Saudane Respectively.
• Producer: Zee Studios, Dreaming Twenty Four 7 & Deepak Pandurang Rane

Quick Viewpoint: Sanjay Jadhav’s ‘Khari Biscuit’ has it’s flaws if looked objectively without being emotionally attached. But the problem is, it is really hard to detach ourselves emotionally even while judging the film! If a film manages to do that to you, I consider it a really good film irrespective of the flaws!

What Works? 

• First & foremost the credit to the film’s effectiveness should go to the three writers who have worked on the film; Sanket Mane, Sachin Mote & Chetan Saudane. On all three fronts of story, screenplay & dialogues ‘Khari Biscuit’ is built with a singular objective of relating the audience on an emotional level. They primarily succeed when we are by the side of the protagonist (the brother ‘biscuit’) quite quickly when the film starts. And then throughout we look at the obstacles coming in the way of our protagonist in a very sensitive way.
• The performances of the two lead kids are wonderful. While the little girl Vedashree Khadilkar pours sweetness into many little moments in the film, her elder brother played by Adarsh Kadam is throughout brilliant. His earnestness and sincerity in every scene that he features in is eye catching!
• Along with the emotional connect through the children’s story the film connects to us emotionally on another important front! Cricket is a religion in our country and for the longest time Sachin Tendulkar has been it’s god! This film understands that & uses that to it’s benefit beautifully! If you have ever been that cricket fan who sits in one position throughout the game as some superstition towards India winning or Sachin scoring, ‘Khari Biscuit’ is a tribute to you and your kind!
• Many films are made in order to romanticize the message of ‘hope’. It’s a very common trait of film messaging from the beginning of time! I think new films made today about ‘hope’ don’t get any by default credit for choosing it as the film’s major inspirational strategy, but when those films actually make you ‘feel’ hopeful that is when you have to give the due credit to them! And ‘Khari Biscuit’ made me feel ‘hopeful’!
• There’s a dialogue in the film where the elderly, motherly figure played by Nandita Patkar makes the protagonist realize that why ‘lies’ are important in a poor man’s life. And how ‘lies’ make their reality liveable. That moment to me puts into perspective the entire film and also makes feeling ‘hopeful’ more logical and meaningful!

What Fails?

• The film will ask for suspension of disbelief from the audiences and those who can’t manage it won’t be diving deep emotionally in the film. And if there’s no emotional connection for a viewer the entire film will loose all of it’s charm on him/her.
• While the film is shot decently enough in actual real locations in Mumbai, the stress is not on making the reality hit hard. To some extent if the film made the audiences realize about the harsher obstacles kids living on their own on the streets face, the emotional grip of the film on us would have only been tighter!
• By the end of the film there’s a track where the protagonist and his friends gets involved into something that is morally, ethically questionable. However the treatment given to this is pretty casual and superficial. Again there was scope to make it more harsher and hence more emotionally effective!

Final Verdict: Sanjay Jadhav is a director who has always reinvented himself at regular intervals. ‘Khari Biscuit’ is the first film in his newest reinvention of himself! And in my opinion he has managed to bring together his stylistic (commercially) way of cinema along with the cinema that appeals to us on a human level for it’s emotional truth!

The post Khari Biscuit Review: An Emotionally Moving Experience! appeared first on MarathiStars.

• Review: Baba
• Director : Raj R Gupta
• Star Cast: Deepak Dobriyal, Nandita Patkar, Aryan Menghji, Spruha Joshi, Abhijeet Khandkekar, Chittranjan Giri & Jaywant Wadkar
• Screenplay: Manish Singh
• Producer: Maanayata Dutt & Ashok Subhedar

Quick Viewpoint: The basic one liner for ‘Baba’ does have a lot of emotional strength. And to some extent the film does explore it well up until the first half. But somewhere in the second half it loses it’s focus and then never really recovers.

What Works? 

• As said above, the basic story line of the film, where two sets (out of which one set is deaf and dumb) of parents are battling for a kid, is very believable. The situation that has caused this conflict might seem slightly filmy but the complexity of the scenario is from the real world. No parties are wrong yet one of them has to loose!
• The lead cast of the deaf and dumb parents (Dobriyal and Patkar) and the kid (Aryan) belong together in every way. Their chemistry works even more effectively as they are made to communicate without words!
• The film is technically well made, the music especially works really well to give it a light-hearted playful tone mainly in the first half.
• Even when the second half has issues the end is effective, not that it undoes the errors of the film but it still has lasting impression. It is not overly melodramatic and neither is it emotionally dull.

What Fails? 

• In the second half the film wastes too much time on a very irrelevant, unimportant sub track! The whole track could have been summed up in 5 minutes but the film wastes at least 20 minutes or more over it.
• In the end the film gives a sensible vocal perspective to what it wanted to say about the society which treats deaf and dumb individuals differently. Unfortunately the film fails to imbibe the message into the actual screenplay and simply covers it in the climax.
• The deaf and dumb parents are understandably too attached to the kid but never do they realize the importance of a different life for their kid. Maybe unintentionally the film projects them as selfish parents who couldn’t see what’s best for their kid beyond their love for him.
• The other parents portrayed by Spruha Joshi and Abhijeet Khandkekar deserved more exploration as characters in the film. They even have a legit sub-track worthy conflict between them! But the film fails at exploring them and making them lesser important in the story which doesn’t make us understand their emotional side of the story.

Final Verdict: ‘Baba’ is a decent film that can be seen with the family. But with minimum expectations.

The post Baba Movie Review: A Decent Film that Could Have Been Better! appeared first on MarathiStars.

Sanjay Dutt produced first Marathi film ‘Baba‘ created a lot of excitement among audiences after it’s teaser. Bollywood actor Deepak Dobriyal is being seen in a Marathi film for the first time and now the trailer of the film reveals the actual plot of the film and the rest of the important characters. Along with Nandita Patkar & Deepak Dobriyal the film also stars Spruha Joshi & Abhijeet Khandkekar!

The film seems to raise questions about parenthood in a very subtle way. Are emotions more important or is it important to think practically. The age old social & economical difference between two strata of society now has another layer in this film when one pair of parents are deaf and dumb, whereas others are normal.

While such stories are not being seen for the first time in our films, ‘Baba’ still feels like an emotionally impactful experience mainly because of the actors involved in the film! The film releases in theatres on 2nd of August and promises to appeal to the family audiences in particular!

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