Watching her play this part is the most starkly disorienting thing about Noor. The movie gives her a chance to be an actual flesh-and-bone person. She’s relatable as a girl who swears by her rum(and suffers hangovers), eats cake in bed(and dreads getting on a weighing scale) and becomes the third wheel on a friend’s date(while cursing her own single life). We’ve all been there.
Noor(Sinha) wants to shine a light on serious issues but is stuck being the torchbearer of mediocre puff pieces. Her childhood friend Saad(Gill) gives her pep-talks from the friendzone and her mentor(Chaudhary) reigns her in when she’s too enthusiastic about a new exposé. Even as she’s coming to terms with the hotness of her new boyfriend, Ayan(Kohli), her maid Malti(Tambe) brings a major organ-trade racket to her notice.
Director Sunhil Sippy has achieved the rare feat of not stereotyping people in the media by showing them as jhola-toting opinionated creatures. There’s an instant connect with Noor’s world; her friends are as silly as yours, her issues are at times frivolous but her quarter-life crisis seems credible. The film is slightly over-written(a whole lot of dialogue) but lines are mostly funny.
Since the movie gets this generation right, it has to get its flaws right too. Noor introduces a conflict which is serious and relevant, but offers very little by way of resolution. It unintentionally gives a nod to armchair-activism, and as representative of our time as it is, it simply cannot cover-up the lazy writing towards the end. A slightly stronger effort on the protagonist’s part could have propelled the movie into greatness.
But where Noor falls short, Sinha rises to the occasion. Gill brings a lightheartedness to the movie and Smita Tambe delivers equally well in half the screen-time.
This is the great debut that has come seven years into Sonakshi’s career. And for that, you must go meet Noor at theatre.