Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Genre : Romance, Action
Year : 2021
Running time : 2 hours 6 minutes
Director : Dibakar Banerjee
Cast : Parineeti Chopra, Arjun Kapoor, Jaideep Singh Ahlawat, Neena Gupta, Raghuvir Yadav, Rahul Kumar
Kidwise : PG-13
The title of the film says it all – Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar translates to Sandeep and Pinky have fled – which is essentially what happens in the first 20 minutes of the film. Sandy “Sandeep” Walia (Chopra) and Satinder “Pinky” Dahiya must run away together under very unusual circumstances. Starting off as two people at odds with each other – she is a svelte financial maven sporting expensive clothes and handbags, while he is a surly middle-class Jat policeman – the journey, and the challenges it brings, draws them closer.
Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar is not your traditional love story. It starts off with unexpected violence, and completely turns the story on its head. From then on it is a slow burn, and we watch Sandeep and Pinky evade their hunters, bumblingly taking refuge with a kindly older couple, played fantastically by Raghuveer Yadav and Neena Gupta. There is also Jaideep Ahlawat (whom we recently saw in the fantastic series Paatal Lok) as “Tyagi Sir” – Pinky’s mentor and friend.
Dibakar Banerjee’s reputation preceedes him. He has directed crackers like Khosla ka Ghosla, Love Sex aur Dhoka and Shanghai, so his films are always eagerly anticipated. His eye for detail and nuance gives us finely crafted characters. There’s cantankerous, sexist Uncle and emotional Aunty – both characters are people you might have met in some small town of India. Then there’s the character of Munna and his father. Munna is a hoot, a young man with blond highlights, he idolizes Pinky bhaiya from the moment they share their adoration of actor Salman Khan. In a nice touch, they even wear similar bracelets!
Parineeti and Arjun do well too. Arjun is not quite the actor Parineeti is but he is believable as unsmiling, grunting Haryanvi Jat Pinky, although his dialogues seemed a little unintelligible at first. Given that Bollywood heroes are more often like a Kabir Singh (overtly misogynistic or subtly sexist) it is nice to see a gruff, presumably conservative-minded hero evolve into a character who displays kindness and sympathy once he understands the other person’s point of view.
This film’s story is about Sandeep and Pinky but it is set in the larger context of politics and corruption, and touches upon social issues like class and wealth disparity. In one interesting scene, middle-class Pinky derides wealthy Sandeep telling her that for people like her, people like him are unseen and expendable, that even with her wealth and all the advantages it brings, she and her ilk cannot keep from taking more and more than their fair share.
Director Banerjee manages to intertwine all these threads to give us an unpredictable slow-burner of a film. While this could have been better given Banerjee’s skill and past work, Sandeep aur Pinky Faraar is still very, very good. Highly recommended!
Kidwise: Some gun violence. One scene of attempted rape. Might be unsuitable for younger kids.
