Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon!

Terrific movie! And completely unexpected with unforgettable performances from Antara Mali and Rajpal Yadav. People do not give Antara Mali enough credit and type cast her as a wanna be Urmila Matondkar and Toy of Ram Gopal Varma. I've not seen her latest offerings yet (Nach and Gayab) which I understand are the eye of storms, however, she did her homework for this role of an innocent and naive village girl with huge aspirations and pulled it off perfectly.

Not to mention, she does a terrific Madhuri Dixit! I'm sure Mrs. Nene herself would approve

In the meantime, Rajpal Yadav brings a character to life that the audience can not help but identify with and root for. You really wish that his lovable underdog will get the girl! The cutesy chemistry of the two is enough to recommend this movie.

Add to this a refreshingly original storyline and Ram Gopal Varma's slick and tight style of film making, and you have a cute, feel good, and surprisingly fun movie to watch.

Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon review :

A small town girl called Chutki (Antara Mali) is a huge Madhuri Dixit fan and aspires to be a Bollywood star like her. Her parents get her married off to childhood pal Raja (Rajpal Yadav) who supports her dream and they land up in big bad Mumbai to encounter all sort of hurdles. A Ram Gopal Varma (RGV) production for his then muse Antara Mali; Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon was a well executed comedy drama by newbie director Chandan Arora. The seemingly serious screenplay is laced with humorous moments which makes the film a nice breezy watch at just about two hours thirty minutes of its run time.

The films truly belongs to Antara Mali who delivers her career best performance as a Madhuri fan with a go-get it attitude. She has brought such an innocent charm in Chutki that you root for her every time she gets in to trouble. You just want her to win though it appears impracticable. That is the sweetness Antara lends her character and elevates the film to a cut above the common place. Rajpal Yadav, fine actor that he is, brings in a certain amount of earnestness in his act. Govind Namdev, playing the manager who tries to help Chutki, is also impressive.

On the flipside, the film only skims the surface of the casting couch syndrome without getting in to the gory details. A peripheral actor does try to take advantage of Chutki but it is all done and dusted with pronto. A little more insight in to the functioning of the Hindi film industry could have taken this movie to an altogether different level.

Nevertheless, Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon is one of the better products coming from RGV factory. Like Antara loves Madhuri, I started loving Antara after this film. Recommended watch!!

Regards, Sumeet Nadkarni.

Director Chandan Arora hits gold with his debut film, Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon, an unusual, self-reflexive look at Bollywood's reality versus its public image and the dreams it fosters.

The story concerns an innocent girl named Chukti (Antara Mali), who lives in the farming village hinterlands of India and who loves the work of Bollywood star Madhuri Dixit. Most of the village turns out during their free time to watch the latest films on a makeshift screen in a makeshift theater. Chukti has a talent for mimicking Dixit, a fact she exploits by putting on public performances of her own--dancing on a small stage to Dixit songs playing on a boom-box.

Chukti dreams of moving to Mumbai and becoming a film heroine. Of course her parents are traditional, so they won't hear anything of it. When they realize she's serious enough to consider running away, they plan to marry her off as soon as possible.

Enter Rajeshwar Singh (Rajpal Yadav). He's the only person in the village who sincerely believes in Chukti, and he's also in love with her, although she seems oblivious to it--she only cares about becoming a star. He suggests that if he can talk his father into arranging a marriage between them (which they'll keep secretly platonic), he'll take her to Mumbai as his wife. There, they can pursue Chukti's dream.

The bulk of the film is about Chukti trying to make it in Bollywood. The dramatic hinge is the clash of her dreams with the realities of the film business and big city life.

This is a unique film in that it forgoes many of the staples of the Bollywood genre. Yes, there are songs, there is a romance of sorts, and there is even a kind of love triangle, but these are all very unusually incorporated. The songs are exclusively present for realistic, dramatic purposes. Songs only appear when characters are engaging in stage performances, "celebrations" with music, film performances, and so on. Arora always has the music at a level of remove--we're watching people watching or engaging in performances.

The romance aspect is almost exclusively implicit. There is something of a resolution to it in the end, but the resolution is extremely subtle--it basically amounts to a character putting on a piece of jewelry, and the action easily enables multiple interpretations.

The "love triangle" takes place between the party who "secretly" loves Chutki and a party who is only trying to manipulate her dreams to take advantage of her. It is resolved in an incredibly powerful dramatic moment that in a lesser film would be followed up with a clichéd vengeance subplot. Here, it's not brought up again--this says much more than the stereotype would.

"Incredible dramatic power" is apt for much of the film, even though there are extended comedic segments, as well. Most of Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon is constructed more like a tragedy with brief comic relief. All of the plot developments are very realistic. And as such, the theme of the film is often a "necessary medicine" disillusioning from unrealistic dreams.

Some might think it is a flaw that most characters are slightly caricatured in the film. However, it is not as if there aren't people in the real world like this. There is no shortage of the relatively naïve, coming from the heartland to Los Angeles, New York City, and presumably Mumbai, hoping to make it big in a stroke, yet having very little knowledge of how the arts and entertainment industries work. For another example, it's certainly not the case only in fiction that some parents are bilked out of money via funding requests from their offspring for non-existent projects and studies.

That the film is so unique should be expected once one realizes that it was produced by Ram Gopal Varma. Varma is well known for advocating breaks from various Bollywood traditions that have become clichéd. He's made films completely void of musical numbers. He's made films without romance elements. He's made films with vastly different pacing and plot structures than the typical Bollywood film. There's nothing wrong with the traditional Bollywood formula, except that variety is necessary. Varma is doing much to set the Indian film industry on the right road in that regard.

So it's fitting that Varma is behind this well-acted, well-directed, well-photographed, etc. film that looks at Bollywood with a critical eye. It is just as intriguing for its insights into the real world of film-making as it is for its plot about Chukti and Raja. Varma and Arora show us that often, a director is more someone who merely tries to keep a lid on burgeoning chaos, partially emerging from underlings who'll make stupid decisions in an attempt to please, and partially from "grunts" who don't know what the heck they're doing. They show us the complicated world of agents who mean well, but who have to be shysters a bit because it's in the job description. They show us how catty and competitive other entertainers can be. They show us the realities of working one's way up. They show us the difference between image, such as the idea that Bollywood, or even Hollywood, is some kind of glamorous, unified entity, and the scattered, somewhat grungy reality--Chukti and Raja have to live in a rat-hole, next door to someone who has been involved with over 50 films, and some participants don't even live in the same country. They show us how important it is to learn to take rejection. They show us a transparent look at studio guards and security. They show us that manipulative/exploitative fraud isn't limited to the entertainment industry. And so on.

Whether you just want a unique, humorous, powerful and moving film about charming characters, or an "inside" look at the film industry, or a bit of both, Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon fits the bill.

this movie was extremely enjoyable. what a breath of fresh air!. antara was awesome, and totally inhabited her character ( a village girl who is a madhuri dixit wannabe).she had the dance movements and facial expressions down pat..( i guess as much as one can copy the one and only ms dixit!). rajpal yadav was absolutely amazing and pretty much stole the show.''fresh idea. great script and direction . very well developed and three dimensional characters..classic story arc . makes you want to root for the underdog protagonist.! overall gotta give it an 8 ! most underrated movie of 2003. most underrrated actor- rajpal yadav.

The movie is about Chutki (Antara Mali), a small town village girl who sees herself as the iconic Madguri Dixit. She dances and sings her way around the village and all adore her but none more than Raja (Rajpal Yadav) a childhood playmate who believes in her potential. Chutki ends up marrying Raja so they can go off to Bombay and Chutki can realize her dreams.

But her copying Madhuri ends up getting her jobs as part of the dance troupe, as an item girl. She wants to be a leading lady but she is like a babe in the woods - the vulnerable outsider - both Bombay and the biz are completely unknown to her and her husband. In fact one is expecting dire things to happen at any moment - the slightly shady looking neighbor, who turns out to be pretty benign, the hoodlum who turns out to be a cowardly fellow, the cabbie who merely price gouges, the agent who seems so ominously shady yet turns out to be a real agent and helpful at that.. These personalities in the world around her underline the fact that nothing should be taken at face value.

The movie also had some very funny moments - Choli ke peeche kya hai wil never seem the same to me! And the part where Rajpal Yadav goes to plead on her behalf and ends up being offered the acting role instead, ironic yet funny.

I liked Antara's looks - she was a strange blend of attractive and ordinary and she acted very well as the village belle who was so self assured in her village environment and so vulnerable and unsure in the big city. Rajpal Yadav was very good as the self effacing husband. I particularly liked the fact that the "Madhuri" moments were brief and Antara managed to make them her own. Music was unobtrusive and worked well in the film. I also liked the fact that not much was made of the Chutki Raja romance and the fact that the marriage was in name only!