Aiyyaa

There was a time in the early '2k era' when an actress was slowly making a mark in Indian cinema. She was small, impish, vigorously spontaneous and ever charming. Her crackling voice appeared unpleasant initially leading filmmakers like Mahesh Bhatt to dub someone else for her. However, like a true talent would, she turned every scar to star. Rani Mukherjee, the actress with all her effervescence was missing all this while from the silver screen, she made her fans wait and grumble. However, the wait was worth!! With "Aiyaa", Rani is rightfully "back with a bang". She rants, she banters, she raves and she rules!!!

Meenakshi Deshpande (Rani Mukherjee) loves to dream herself as Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi and Juhi Chawla (the ladies who ruled Indian cinema in the 90's). She idolizes them...but wait, she is not a wannabe actress, she simply loves to dream! A typical 'teenage Bollywood freak' at heart, Meenakshi's dreams are pompous, opulent and larger-than-life, no matter how diminutive her real life existence is. While her parents almost hound for a suitable match for her, she secretly nourishes the idea of eloping with her boyfriend by taking away all her grand ma's assorted jewellery. A secret wish to fall in love and get rid of the 'ever-so-mundane' ways of life is all that she wants. The movie begins by elucidating upon the innuendos of this freaky, simple yet vivacious Marathi mulgi. Meenakshi's dream is perhaps every (middle class) girl's dream and this is where an instant connection takes place between the audience and the gripping narrative of this girl.

Rani Mukherjee with all her gusto gives a live wire performance as Meenakshi on-screen.

Before one could settle down with the vibrancy of this girl, another aspect about her comes to surface. Meenakshi is hyper-sensitive to 'smell' in general. The municipality dustbin is just a stone's throw from her house. She is agitated, screams and rants about it all the day. Feels stifled almost every time she passes by it and gets nauseated by its foulness. However, the fragrance of dreams never ceases to grasp her. The bin here works as a complete metaphor to showcase the innate quality of this girl to live life just the way she wants to!

The story develops further. Meenakshi eventually manages a job as a librarian in an art college and consequently feels a magnetic pull towards an art student there for the "heavenly" smell that he emanates. Is it the perennial stingy smell that she has to bear with back home which makes her so drawn towards this "out-of the world" smell of this man? We ponder! Prithviraj, I was told is a South superstar. He absolutely lives up to the expectations in the film. Super dashing as he looks on screen, his contemplative face as an artist is a "countenance to reckon with", so much so that Meenakshi eventually falls head-over-heels in love with him and so does most of the girls in the audience! (I included)

Like her dreams Meenakshi follows him almost everywhere. She goes all out of her way to learn Tamil. She barges into the men's toilet, gatecrashes into his house as a sales woman and secretly steals his shirt only to wear it in the night and feel closer to his 'existence'. The longing to be with the beloved can also be satiated by wearing his clothes, his belongings and their remnants. A beautiful expression indeed!!

Gyrating dance moves and raunchy make-ups are nothing but an expression of her fantasies that plummets the moment real life strikes.

Meenakshi's marriage gets apparently fixed up with the 'Farooque Sheikh' admirer Madhav which she couldn't impede even after a forceful horrendous rendition of a Tamil song.

She continually follows her dream man who is continually oblivious about her. Meenakshi pulls out all the stops to follow him for an entire day and escapes from her pending engagement. She finally meets him eventually discovers the reason for the heavenly smell that pulls her....

Almost a fairytale story told in a fairytale fashion, 'Aiyaa' wins your heart with its softness, unique expression of love and ever so pure "smell" factor attached to it. What is it, other than the looks, which make a person different from the others externally? Smell right?

No two individual can smell the same technically. The director harps on this fact and colors it with all the possible shades of romance. The intensity of a person's body, the feeling of getting attached with him by inhaling that fragrance…..emotions become almost palpable at the very realization of it all!!

'Aiyaa' other than being a fun to watch movie is also very profound in the message it inadvertently conveys. With some comic relief in the form of the 'golden tooth of the grand ma' and Meenakshi's pro-PETA brother (which I honestly feel the script did not need at all), the film fulfills all the quotients of entertainment. After Sridevi's powerful performance in English Vinglish, its Rani's exuberance that comes our way this time round. What a treat for movie buffs! Much like Sridevi's Shashi, who ends up completely transforming herself as an expert in English, Rani's Meenakshi too coverts from speaking "aiyaa" to "aaiyo". She meets her dream man finally and becomes "Meenakshi Deshpande Iyer".

P.S- Extra ordinary dance prowess showcased by Rani (especially the belly dance). Beautiful movie, must watch!!

Meenakshi is so real,she portrays any gal's dilemma of pursuing inner desires vs choosing a life which is practical and realistic. except for the raunchy numbers, this movie is a beautiful. the songs seems like they were added for the masses otherwise its a very well written and directed story. i love the chemistry between meenakshi and surya . her helplessness in expressing her true intent was portrayed very well by Rani Mukerji. i like prithviraj and i would watch this again for him.

Promoted as a fun filled love story mixing the Maharashtrian and South Indian backdrops, AAIYYA was also considered to be the comeback film for Rani Mukherjee returning after a long gap. But the promos were not able to generate the right amount of curiosity as there was a clearly visible loud kind of effort put in by Rani herself in all those sensual dance numbers using some new distorted words. Moreover the promotional campaign was safely stressing too much on "The Dirty Picture" style of strategy to bring in a wider base of audience which didn't really work as expected.

Therefore if studied from that angle AIYYAA can also be taken as one of the after effects of "The Dirty Picture" which was not a good choice of subject by its makers. Actually TDP worked majorly due to its novelty factor, full of boldness which is difficult to click again in a second similar attempt. So, where the catchy songs of AIYYAA, sound great when played in the DJ dance parties, the same is not the result when we see them on the screen coming in as the usual fillers.

The film offers a good enjoyable 20-25 minutes in the start, when all the characters are being introduced and the narration seems to be fresh as well as interesting. But after those initial fine moments, the viewers keep waiting for some entertaining twists or sequences in its basic storyline which refuse to come and it all goes on at a very uneasy pace. As a result, all those weird but amusing mannerisms of its various characters gradually turn into repetitive, ridiculous and irritating leading to an avoidable mess.

Being an experienced professional, Rani Mukherjee works hard for her unusual role and she does well too to portray the character in the best possible manner with a little over-acting where ever required. But she also looks a complete misfit in few songs and her sniffing act starts getting on your nerves after a while. Frankly, I also found the same quite odd & silly, since Rani is purely in love with just the smell of Prithviraj in the whole film, without knowing anything about him or his nature personally. And if that was an innovative idea thrown in, then it was certainly a first on the screen, thoughtfully penned by the writers literally going out of the box. May be, the phrase "Love is Blind" should be now replaced with a new one saying "Love is Smelly" – courtesy AIYYAA.

The male lead, Prithviraj, the actor from South is impressive in his silent act (wherein he only gets to speak towards the end) and so is Subodh Bhave as the official fiancé. But there are more than one hamming stars in the rest of the cast lead by the actors playing Rani's parents, brother and grandmother. And on top of all is the girl playing Rani's office colleague, posing as the Indian Lady GaGa. The writing is quite patchy since there is no clear indication of what Rani actually wants to become in her real life as per her ambition shown in the first scene. Her passion for films and the dream of becoming a heroine suddenly takes a back seat once the love story starts off and then she is only interested in getting married and nothing else.

But despite of all the above mentioned flaws, the film continues to hold some ground until a sick song "Izzat Paapad" suddenly breaks in all of a sudden and ruins it completely. It simply pulls the film down in the bracket of below average ventures and the viewer starts looking left & right like a lost person. Further it goes on a stretching mode offering a pretty weak, lackluster climax without any exciting or entertaining moments which force you to just leave the theater at once without any further thinking.

As a matter of fact, AIYYAA talks about some strange characters coming from the imagination of director Sachin Kundalkar who remains drowned in his own world or script, forgetting the truth that the film was basically being made for the viewers alone. His unconventional and uninteresting narration not only lets down the hearty effort ofRani Mukherjee but it also affects the brand name of Anurag Kashyap presenting the film as a producer.

In all, few enjoyable tracks of Amit Trivedi and a passionate performance of Rani Mukherjee are the only two merits in AIYYAA. And if these two excite you well, then do watch it in the theater or else wait for its DVD release in the next few weeks.

OK, this is a goofy movie (the tag line is: Go Wakda (wacky)) so if you are expecting superb entertainment, you are out of luck. But, Rani Mukerji really shines as a nut job and really makes this movie laughable fun. I vote for her to star in the next Houseful 3 as her wackiness would work well in that series. You need to appreciate the wacky humor that comes with the Golmaal, Houseful, or Masti/Grand Masti series to enjoy his one. If that is not your style of humor, look elsewhere. Meenakshi's family is truly dysfunctional and adds to the humor. Meenaski's friend and co-worker Mynah comes across as an Indian Lady Gaga and is somewhat funny, but a little annoying at times. When Meenakshi dreams about being her favorite actresses is probably the funniest parts, so it helps to have a good background on some older Bollywood hits and veteran actresses to get a laugh at those scenes. The music is catchy, though some of the dance sequences are a bit risqué which is slightly unusual for Rani. Nothing terrible, but slightly not family safe for younger members. Prithviraj's character is played well especially in the end. Not a hit, but good goofy fun if you are looking for a good laugh.

Aiyyaa was a major critical and financial failure, but having seen the nice trailer and liked it, and considering the fact that Rani Mukherjee is in it, I most willingly decided to watch it. I personally found Aiyya to be thoroughly enjoyable. It is a slightly mad but totally relatable comic ride which is well written and acted and which has plenty of great moments. The humour is indeed very different from what we are used to watching in the usual Bollywood fare, and the basic concept of a woman just going 'aiyyaa' over a stranger whose mysterious fragrance attracts her the most may be quite weird at points. But, it is this very premise which makes this little film ever more unique and funny. The film is portrayed rather realistically, with the sets, costumes and dialogue giving it an engaging sense of everyday simplicity, while being consistently humorous. The portrayal of Meenakshi's Marathi family is very amusing, and the songs are quite fun to watch. Aiyyaa's biggest strength, however, is the portrayal of its main character; Meenakshi finds a way to deal with her everyday troubles through the power of the imagination. She creates her own perfect, spiritual world, using her dreams without really losing herself. In this regard, Aiyyaa works as a mini-celebration of the human spirit.

All of this, however, wouldn't have been the same without the wonderful presence of Rani Mukherjee. Mukherjee is a true delight in this film. Her last great performance was in a minuscule part in Saawariya, and it's been ages since we've seen her really immerse herself into a character, as she does here. As Meenakshi, she is hilarious and at times just borderline self-deprecatory. It is this uninhibited, fearless quality that makes this comic performance work so well. Her dance numbers, needless to say, are brilliant and she looks a million bucks in each one of them. South Indian actor Prithviraj is for the most part a mere presence on-screen, but he does pretty well and is good foil for Mukherjee. The other members of the cast are all very good and turn in nice and funny acts. Towards the end the film provides us with some of its most beautiful sequences. The climactic scenes are very surprising and the ending is unexpected and rewarding. This is also the opportunity to note the excellent cinematography, and the amazing background score, which enhance the narrative. Aiyyaa is an absolute laugh riot which has been misunderstood and rejected by critics and audiences just for the wrong reasons. I liked it, and would definitely recommend it to Hindi film buffs.