Movie Review : Aiyyaa

Rating : 3/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2012
Running time : 2 hours 15 minutes
Director : Sachin Kundalkar
Cast : Rani Mukherjee, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Satish Alekar, Anita Date, Amey Wagh, Nirmiti Sawant, Subodh Bhave, Jyoti Subhash
Kid rating : PG-15

Meenakshi Deshpande is a middle-class girl living in a middle-class neighborhood with her parents, wheelchair bound grandmother (Jyoti Subhash) and brother. She is no ordinary girl though, but one with a penchant for fantasy, high aspirations and a finely honed sense of smell. As her perpetually hyper mother and cigarette smoking father try their level best to “settle” their daughter with a nice groom, she herself has other ideas.

Meenakshi gets a job at a college library where she is entranced with a wonderful smell – that belonging to taciturn Tamilian art student Surya Iyer (Prithvi). Even as she follows him everywhere besotted, Surya has no idea she exists. Push comes to shove when Meenakshi is engaged to Madhav Rajadhyaksha (Subodh Bhave), and the wedding day dawns, but Meenakshi is nowhere to be found.

The olfactory senses play a big part in the movie, because Meenakshi can smell everything – from the stench of the municipality trash bin right outside their house to the smell of an alluring male. Stylistically Aiyya is over-the-top and goofy, primarily because of it’s quirky heroine, played marvelously by Rani Mukherji. Rani immerses herself in Meenakshi’s filmi fantasies – one moment she is Sridevi from Chandni, the next she is Madhuri from Meenaxi (here’s the song). Each of her fantasy songs is enjoyable and performed with much gusto, and Rani brings verve and charm to Meenakshi’s character.

Meenakshi’s family members seem a little crazy – her grandmother careens around wildly in her wheelchair, with shrill shrieks to match, her father (Satish Alekar) is fixated on odd jobs and her mother(Nirmiti Sawant) can barely contain her hyper energy. There is Meenakshi’s dog-loving brother Nana(Ameya Wagh) who hooks up with Meenakshi’s John Abrham-obsessed co-worker Maina (Anita Date). Surya, the eccentric art student keeps odd hours and is seen in the film through Meenakshi’s perspective. So in all honesty there is only one person in the entire film who seems “normal” – Madhav Meenakshi’s fiancé.

This film is a little different that other Hindi films, because it is really heroine-centric – really. It is based on the perception of one, slightly off-kilter girl. The film is focused on Meenakshi – her wants, her desires, her aspirations, her fantasies and her sexuality. She isn’t an abla nari, or a traditional bhartiya nari. She doesn’t fit the mold, nor does she want to. She wants to be fancy-free and footloose, but oh, this middle-class world won’t let her be! Her marriage to staid Madhav looms, while all she wants is to be left alone to bask in Surya’s scent. And he, Surya, is served up as so much eye-candy – a niche generally reserved for women in Bollywood.

While this is a lot of fun, because it is such fun to watch a woman who knows her mind and acts upon it :-), and it is SO rare in Bollywood, even Rani’s skill can’t save this film from it’s slow pace and rough-shod screenplay. While I’m totally with it during the telling of Meenakshi’s story, the “crazy” touches like the banshee-like grandma, or the incongruous hook-up between Nana and Maina leave me flummoxed and a little short on patience. The end feels patchy and badly wrought, and although Meenakshi is happy with how it all ends (coz love must triumph and blah-blah-blah), I couldn’t say the same for myself.

The film is notable for it’s songs. Each one is a lavish (and lascivious and fun) spoof, some of well-known Hindi films and some of South-Indian films, with lyrics to match. In the beginning the songs feature just Meenakshi indulging in her fantasies of being a Bollywood star. In the later part of the film, when Meenakshi desires/stalks/lusts after Surya, the songs also feature him – bare-chested and well-toned. The songs then also start to sound Southie, with cheekily “derived lyrics” (Dreamum Wakepum, Sizem matterum), presumably because Surya speaks Tamil and Meenakshi is learning Tamil to communicate with him.

The film is out-of-the-box and inventive for Hindi cinema. It is a pity then that watching it isn’t smooth sailing, although Aiyyaa is interesting and hilarious in parts. I’d say this was a worth-it watch for Rani herself – her fun and impish portrayal of Meenakshi is a rare one and must be seen.

Kidwise : The steamy songs aren’t exactly kid-friendly, but the film would be passable for older kids. Hence the PG-15 rating.