Turning 30!!!

The film follows Naina's life days before her birthday and the plot revolves around her reaching several crossroads in her life. First off is the thought of turning 30 (horror of all horrors!). Then there's the fact that she's not married, despite being in a long term relationship, and she hasn't really given her long term future much of a thought. Then her world comes crashing down as she has to deal with several problems all at once, namely her personal relationship, her career and her friends.

So how does Naina deal with all of these problems? Well, she drinks a lot, swears a lot, smokes a lot, cries a lot and has a lot of tantrums which are then followed by more crying.

I couldn't wait for this movie to be over, not because it was terrible, as it wasn't that bad, but because it just wasn't that interesting. Turning 30's plot could have been so much better. The idea that she's unmarried and 30 could have led to a comedic path with some funny escapades or a more serious route in which Naina could have done some soul searching and matured as an individual. Instead we're treated to lots of crying and melodrama which was very annoying. I understand that people go to pieces when their relationships go south and it would have been better if that's what happened to Naina. Instead she becomes annoying, needy, whining and childish.

Gul Panag looks very good in the movie and she acts well...part of the time. Those are the parts where she doesn't throw hissy fits, which are very often that it made my eyes roll every time it happened. Her friends are there just as support pillars. There's not much development for their characters which was a shame as it would have provided a good distraction from Naina's problems which occupied the movie 99% of the time.

I can't find it in me to recommend this movie to anyone, unfortunately. For a Gul Panag fan, that is a bitter pill to swallow. It could have been so much better but instead of daring to be different the director and writers went on the well trodden formulaic path which ultimately led to a pointless movie with a typical ending which rendered the whole plot pointless. Watch the first ten minutes and forward to the last ten minutes and you'll have seen the movie with nothing missed in between.

One can write in details about a movie when either it impresses him a lot or when it turns out to be a complete disaster and a great waste of time for the viewer. But it's really tough and also uninteresting to write about a movie which simply leaves you midway and generates a confused kind of impact in the end. TURNING 30 is also one of those few new age movies, which though is based on a relevant and important subject but its end result is nothing more than a below average film made on a fine subject.

No doubt the basic idea behind the film looks like influenced by famous western projects such as BRIDGET JONE'S DIARY and SEX & THE CITY. But in order to create a more philosophical cum controversial kind of a film, its writer and the director move far away from the topic, giving way to the same old Bollywood kind of formulas in its second half.

As per the subject and its language, TURNING 30 is strictly meant for the urban audiences and that too only for the multiplexes. But after watching it, even the multiplex viewers may also feel like having seen something confusing because the film never justifies its meaningful title convincingly. It starts off pretty well with debutant director Alankrita Shrivastava focusing on the right things in the right manner. And its initial reels talk about the subject in a more specific way, with all those bold words and straight forwards dialogues. But later on the focus gets disturbed and one loses interest due to the script returning to the same old plots of the heroine penning a book on her personal experiences and finding her own way in the big bad world.

Ideally, TURNING 30 should have been made on the feelings, thought process and inner mindset of women who have reached that stage and how they tend to tackle the situation in their own way. A mix of 3-4 different stories of few distinctive ladies finding their own way to enter the 30s would have been a great script. But the present movie has only few initial moments talking about the basic theme and then the script starts moving into the same old set patterns post interval. And that's where it all falls flat making no impact of any sort on the viewer. As I felt, it should have been an insightful journey into the mind of lady turning 30 but sadly after its promising start, the film remains limited only to the visible physical changes in the body of a girl and never moves into the soul of an aging female mind anywhere in its latter reels.

Moreover, I simply cannot understand that if the directors of such films are so visionary and thoughtful of making a film on such a novel subject then why on earth they go on adding so many songs into it? Do they still believe that a Hindi Film cannot and should not be made without any songs? At the most, TURNING 30 needed only one song and that too, a sad one with some meaningful lyrics talking about dejection or un- acceptance. But strangely the songs do keep coming in at regular intervals which really are quite disturbing in such concept based movies. And here they even don't have any melody in them to calm you down.

Gul Panag as the leading character of the movie is fine and has broken many of her own set rules of the past in terms of boldness. But the writing gives her no support at all and lets her down completely. Purab Kohli is also good but again his role is not a well defined one in absence of any good reasons given for his coming back to Gul so passionately. Ira Dubey has only got a brief role in which she does well and the rest of the cast is strictly OK with everyone filling their parts to their best.

So, as a subject TURNING 30 had a lot to say and reveal but as a film it doesn't provide you enough explanation of its title theme. Still, if you really want to see it for any specific reason then you may watch it, but only after it gets released in the Home Video market.

Giving one star to this movie is like over over over-estimating this piece of s**t. The worst movie i have ever seen in my life. Why? Why? Why?

All the characters are like horribly terrible copies of Hollywood chick-flicks. Even Chetan Bhagat can write a better story than this. Watching Katrina is not as painful as watching each and every characters here. Songs are painful to ears. Sheer torture!

Since the lead character is a woman don't fool yourself in thinking it has any message to give in that front.

Ultimately its all about finding yourself by writing some crappy book and find the love of your life. One sick movie (?) it is.

STAY AWAY.

Fun premise if not derivative, Gul Panag is very natural with her performance. She is most effective in the emotional scenes which she manages to underplay without going over the top. The poor screenplay, unable to express the required emotions becomes the major drawback of the film having a potential plot and the deliberately added fake mannerisms remain its most annoying feature throughout. Besides it's the overstretching that leads to a big boredom post intermission, our protagonist just keeps repeating the same thing over and over, and supporting characters aren't that developed but only serve as a voice of confidence for the protagonist. The dialogue is decent with nice mix of Hindi and English, which is refreshing for non-hindi speaking viewers, but it does gets quite dull at some places. The score is a bit annoying as it's very repetitive. The cinematography is fine.

Overall, Turning 30 takes a familiar premise and makes a bit refreshing but ends up being familiar again in the end.