Review of Piku

Image Courtesy: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/First_Look_Poster.jpg

Cast: Deepika Padukone (Piku), Amitabh Bachchan (Bhashkor Banerjee), Irrfan Khan (Rana Chaudhary), Moushumi Chatterjee, Raghuvir Yadav, Jishu Sengupta

Direction: Shoojit Sircar

Produced by: NP Singh, Ronnie Lahiri, Sneha Rajani

Written by: Juhi Chaturvedi

Screenplay: Juhi Chaturvedi

Music: Anupam Roy

Cinematography: Kamaljeet Negi

Edited by: Chandrashekhar Prajapati

Production Company: MSM Motion Pictures, Saraswati Entertainment Creations Limited, Rising Sun Films

Release Date: 8^th May, 2015

Duration: 125 minutes

Language: Hindi

Piku, a film by Shoojith Sircar, celebrates the father-daughter relationship in a very unique manner. Released two days prior to Mother’s day, definitely celebrates this wonderful relationship between an aging parent and the adult daughter. It is being said that there is not much difference between a 7-year old child and 70-year old person. Piku explores the regular bittersweet relationship between parents and children. It stands true in our Indian context, where, the parent, who takes care of children, when grows old, wishes to be taken care of by children. Story telling is done in a unique manner, where most of the time, one problem persists i.e. constipation of the aging parent. Humour is linked to this. The punch line ‘motion se hi e-motion hota hai’ speaks volumes about the movie. I will not say that this movie will be liked by all the people, but I am sure, it would strike some chord and touch your hearts.

Piku (Deepika Padukone) is a 30 year old professional associated with an architecture firm. Her father Bhashkor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan) stays with her, who has serious problem of regular constipation. He does not hesitate to even give message to the receptionist of Piku’s office in regard to his bowel disorder. Piku definitely gets irritated by his habits, but that does not stop her from taking care of him. Piku is very well aware that it is her top most priority to take care of her father. Although, the differences between Piku and her father us shown, but the best thing is that, it is shown in such a natural manner. Piku wants to sell their ancestral house Champakunj at Kolkatta, and on Bhashkor’s insistence (rather emotional blackmail), happens to travel by road. The cab service owner Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan Khan) chooses to drive the cab. Rest of the story covers their road journey: irritation of Rana with Bhashkor’s and Piku’s moodiness, Bhashkor getting insecure with Rana talking to Piku, bittersweet talks between Piku and Bhashkor (minus any emotional baggage), confrontation happening between Piku-Bhashkor, Bhashkor-Rana etc.

Dialogues though conveyed in a very light manner have great meaning. Bhashkor says that females with low IQ marry. He specifically talks about this in context of females since they just leave their parents’ home, and dedicate or sacrifice their whole lives for husband and family. Though, one tends to agree with this dialogue, the real undercurrent is the insecurity of a father not wanting his daughter to go away from him after marriage. A father dreads to be left alone after marriage of his daughter, and the daughter understands this fact so well. The emotional troubles of the daughter is also captured beautifully. In spite of her wanting some space, she knows that she can’t live without her father and vice versa. Such a beautiful relationship, where dependency of both father and the daughter are depicted in a simple manner with lot of humour added to the same. Bhashkor has no qualms in telling the prospective grooms of Piku that she is not a virgin and she is financially, emotionally  as well as sexually independent. His idea behind this disclosure is to make the person decide against marrying Piku. It is interesting to see, how Bhashkor is particular about spelling of his name (Bengali roots). He picks up fight with the maid, keeps troubling his helper. But all these are done so naturally that one ends up believing in the characters.

Although 60% of the dialogues are woven around bowel disorders, the movie is about an aging man, who does not want to die with pain. He is extra conscious all the time. His nostalgia is also clearly depicted, when he just does not want to sell Champakunj, since this house has memories of the past. Also, the movie talks about the bond between a father and a daughter in spite of the differences they have. How along with the growing age, the role reversal happens: the child who was taken care of, now has to take care of the parent. The bonding between Piku and her business partner Syed (Jishhu Sengupta), the kind of understanding between the two and the budding romance between Irrfan and Deepika have been handled very subtly.

Amitabh, Deepika and Irrfan have carried the movie on their shoulders. Moushami as the Mausi of Piku is also good.

Most of us would be able to connect to Piku. A simple story told in an interesting manner.

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good +)

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