“Munna mute hi aansoo bahaye”, well this line of the title song on Barfi tells it all, this is a story of a deaf-mute boy who was named Murphy by his parents but because of his non-ability of pronouncing his name correctly, he becomes the Barfi of town, and well, he literally becomes the Barfi, the sweetness he poured in the hilly and beautiful Darjeeling is quite a watch, he is so original, so enjoyable, that he lives every moment king-sized, even when he don’t have much money, or he can’t speak or listen, yet he smiled and smiled he can, and make you enjoy and dance around him, with playing pranks just like that, naughty and charming with girls.
Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor) met Shruti (Ileana D’Cruz) in 1972 in Darjeeling and start impressing her, she also started liking him, and eventually fell in love with him, but then she was getting engaged to Ranjit (Jishu Sengupta), and she left him and came to Kolkata. Meanwhile he got stuck in kidnapping of Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra), the autistic girl, since he want some money for the operation of his father, Jhilmil stick with him for the life-time, and in the end after so many nice moments and emotional turns, both met and lived happily ever after.
This movie is penned by Anurag Basu, who is also the director, and given us the films like Saaya, Murder, Gangster, Life in a metro and Kites, and he is back with this wonderful romantic, heart-touching story, where you felt emotions, but you’ll find tears in your eyes coinciding with a smile on your lips, that is the effect of this movie, he said too many things with so less dialogues, expressive throughout, kudos to him for giving us this film. Ranbir out-smarted everybody, well he is certainly a rockstar now, after giving a Rockstar performance, he handled Barfi role so cutely, that it looked tailor-made for him, but I will want to give more thanks to Priyanka Chopra, she did probably the best role of her life as a mad autistic girl, who does not have mind to work as herself, and still a small child if we talk of brains, and she does it perfectly. Ileana also shared the screen space with her quite equally, and she also shows her acting skills, she basically play the part of narrator, as movie starts with her experience, and is shown through her angle. I will also like to name Saurabh Shukla, who plays the role of sub-Inspector Dutta, and what a role he played, I know he is a gem of an actor, and he wonderfully cracked this one too. Rest including Bhola Raja Sapkota, Ashish Vidyarthi, Rahul Garg, Sumona Chakravarti, did their roles well. Music is also a plus-point of the film, best song of the album is “Barfi”, sung beautifully by now-official-voice-of-Ranbir Mohit Chauhan, wonderful lyrics penned by Amitabh Bhattacharya, and music given by Pritam (amazing!) Other songs also have sweet tunes and lovable lyrics, but I also like one song, which came right when the movie started “Picture shuru”, it was also a beautiful song. The locations, photography and the camera work (Ravi Varman) is awesome, the scenes of Darjeeling looks full of natural beauty, and Kolkata scenes also shows the essence of city, which we have already seen in ‘Kahaani’ few months back though. Scenes are equally emotional and comic, the comic scenes are shot in the pattern of Charlie Chaplins movies, inspired from his acts, and Ranbir did them well.
You used to laugh and enjoy the cuteness of the film, but the biggest drawback of this movie was its length, it continues for 2.5 hours, and which surely will take a toll on you, since movie’s story is simple, so director follows scene by scene, which make it a lengthy affair, and to a bit boring, you enjoyed it, but it looks like you’re watching a serial instead of a film, had it been shorten to probably 2 hours, that would do much great for the movie. Plus the timeline effect was also there, it was shot in a inter-mixed timeline pattern, like 3 timelines coming one after another, that sometime make the viewer a bit confused, as now to which timeline we jumped.
But the movie is certainly watchable, and deserves one-time watch for sure, it’s a complete family entertainer, also had tagline of “Ciggarette smoking is injurious to health”, in all the scenes where anybody (esp.Barfi) shown smoking a cigarette or beedi. Just go and watch this beautiful and different love-story of a mute guy and a mad girl. My take 4/5.
GRuchirG.
Jai Raam ji ki :)