Friday, 8th May 10:55 AM IST

PIKU Is Touching Film About Relationships And Emotions

Pluses:

Deepika Padukone agan proves her mettle as numero uno actress, Amitabh Bachchan reinvents himself at this age yet again, Irrfan Khan surprises with such a understated performance, exceptional background score and music, superb writing and direction

Minuses:

Slow at times, abrupt climax, camerawork and editing look patchy

Critic Rating:

4.5/5

Business Rating:

3.5/5

Verdict:

Watch it for feel good entertainment

Detailed Analysis:

Shoojit Sircar gave rare gems like 'Vicky Donor' and 'Madras Cafe' in last couple of years. This time he is back with another interesting casting and emotional film.

The film kicks off with portrayal of daily life of the Delhi based girl Piku (Deepika Padukone), whose world revolves around her architectural office, her colleague Sayyed Afroze (Jishu Sengupta) and her father Bhaskhor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan). She has mundane and monotonous life. While her day starts off with her office and ends with her ever-worried-about-constipation father. Despite all her efforts to brainwash him off the same, he refuses to budge. That's why she compromises with the existing situation, which also means that she has to cancel a lunch date in order to attend to her 'mentally constipated' father's constant SOS. Just when life is moving in a simple manner for this family, a sudden decision to travel to Kolkata springs up.

Because Bhaskhor rules out the possibility of travelling by air or train citing his constipated problems, the family decides to go on a road trip to Kolkata. One the other hand, due to lack of 'availability' of any driver, the owner of a rental taxi service Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan Khan) decides to drive the car himself. It is during this trip that Piku and her father realize a few bitter facts about life and about each other, courtesy, Rana, who doesn't believe in mincing words when it comes to calling a spade a spade. It is during this journey that a romantic tension develops between Piku and Rana. But when they reach Kolkata, a tragedy strikes the Banerjee household, which, not only changes the entire course of Piku's life, but also brings the entire Banerjee household to a standstill. What is this tragedy that strikes them, will Piku ever be able to find love and does Bhaskhor ultimately find a solution to his constipation is what forms the rest of the film.

Performance wise Deepika Padukone is superb with honest act and consistent intensity throughout the film. Watch out for  sequence when he confronts her father regarding her constipation problem! Amitabh Bacchan should be applauded for reinventing at this age with such a baritone mixed in such a difficult role. Irrfan Khan is good and adds sparks to somewhat slow paced film. Mausami Chatterjee is decent, Jishu Sengupta is endearing and Raghubir Yadav is good too.

Film has very interesting story and screenplay which again proves class of Juhi Chaturvedi. Dialogues deserve special mention for few really funny sequences. Though film slows down at places due to songs and that is why editing could have been crispier. Film has couple of good songs and all songs are well shot. Camerawork is below par.

Director Shoojit Sircar makes an interesting film and he takes up topic of constipation after sperm donation which in itself speaks about his confident storytelling. He tries to achieve simplicity of Hrishikesh Mukherjee from 70's and he achieves that to an extent which speaks volume about quality of this film.

Film will release day after today and should release across 1800 screens. Film has very good chances at box office as there is not much competition because both 'Gabbar Is Back' and 'Kuch Kuch Locha Hai' will appeal to single screens only. Film will depend on great word of mouth as such films jump big post day one.

Go for this one for light hearted fun filled time!