GULAABO SITAABO - A REVIEW

Amidst the Corona chaos Shoojit Sircar’s much anticipated Gulabo Sitabo finally released on Amazon Prime Video streaming platform.The movie is a tragic drama comedy revolving around the irritable and curmudgeon landlord Mirza(Amitabh Bachchan), rebellious and defiant tenant Baankey (Ayushmann Khurrana) and the inanimate dilapidated in ruins mansion ‘Fatima Mahal’. The theme that propels the plot is the intricate relationship between poverty and greed and how it subsequently drives us to take desperate, petty and canny measures.The flawed and not so amiable characters portray the queer complexities of everyday life and how it all narrows  down to money. The viewer also encounters some subtle and not so central themes like materialisation of love, the shrewd and opportunist society( government and system ) unscrupulously waiting to make a gain at our loss and communal brotherhood.

Despite Juhi Chaturvedi’s sharp writing Gulabo Sitabo did not do justice to its potential owing to Shoojit’s not so impeccable direction. The plot being slow is not helped by the scenes in the first half which serve very little to story or character development. There are moments of satire and dark humor that invest the audience in bits and pieces but never perpetually.The storyline attempts to create the intriguing effect as to how and who will eventually end up making the fortune but the pace of the movie defeats the purpose and the viewer is never really glued to the screen.

The female characters penned by Juhi are a delight to watch.Even with very scant screen time they manage to make a mark. Mirza’s wife Fatto Begum(Farrukh Jaffar)  lights up the screen with her sassy demeanor and witty replies. Banke’s love interest Fauzia(Poornima Sharma)  and his sister Gudoo(Srishti Shrivastava) are forthright, candid and unorthodox characters who make their presence felt owing to their vibrant performances. The plot engrosses the viewer with the entry of Gyanesh(Vijay Raaz) and Christopher Clarke(Brijendra Kala) who play their deceitful and crooked characters effortlessly.Shantanu Moira’s  music coupled with purposeful lyrics uplifts the satiric tragic moments in the story. Amitab Bachchan’s performance as Mirza with a hunched back , prosthetic nose , filthy clothes and unresolved body language is praise worthy. The back drop of not so affluent areas of Lucknow is also appealing.

May be in theaters Gulabo Sitabo would have dawned upon us differently perhaps more intriguingly.