Nanu Ki Jaanu Movie Review: It Is Cute Harmless & Original!

Nanu Ki Janu

Starring Abhay Deol, Patralekha, Manu Rishi Chadha

Directed  by Faraz Haidar

Rating:***(3 Stars)

 One moment can change your life.So says  the  film regarding  our nasty habit of  attending to the cellphone  while driving. Oh well, read the bold italicized  writing on the wall.

  The  lessons  of life flow  like toothpaste  from a uncapped tube, luckily without hampering  the  flow of some refined farce  in this innocuous ,  cute  if at times grating confection blending  humour with the  supernatural element.

 For those who  have been missing  him, Abhay Deol gets to  be in nearly every frame  of  the film. It’s  called making up for lost time. And that(time wasted  time gone) is one of the underlying themes  of  this fair little concoction   of farce and fear…It could have been much better if only it didn’t set out to wag fingers at the imbalances  in  life.

 Actually the  fear factor is  just a hazy notion, as  Deol,  putting all his energy into the  part,  steps  into the  role of a  man who loses his mafia  mojo after  an  accident.

 The  film has some lovely ideas on  redemption and salvation that  it  throws forward willy-nilly. The humour specially  related to a bully who loses his aggression to a road accident, is well-aimed. Abhay Deol’s deadpan drollery(which makes him look  like  a cousin  to Ajay Devgan  rather than  Sunny Deol)  serves  the plot well .

 Deol infuses intelligence in  potentially fatuous  sequences.And he gets reliable  support  in redoubtable co-actors like Manu Rishi, Himani Shivpuri ,Rajesh  Sharma and Bajendra Kala, all of whom work  laboriously towards making us overlook the gaping holes  in  the narrative.But the ham-handed  treatment  of  the theme occasionally disrupts  the rather endearing story of a man who falls in love with the ghost  of a road accident.

Patralekha makes a likeable spirit. But playing ghost also keeps her invisible  for a large part of the film. You wish there was more of her.Come  to think  of it, you wish  there  more  of a lot of things  in this ghostly satire.

 You also wish the  film didn’t labour so strenuously  to throw forward the  lessons of life which  wouldn’t need  to be served  on a platter if the story had been written with more sensitivity. Nonetheless Nanu Ki Jaanu compensates for its  pale notions of redemption with lots of voluptuous Punjabi-styled  humour , that includes a femaleghostbuster  in  a hip-hugging saree and with a  designer  handbag, that never lapses into  vulgarity. It is a fun to watch while it lasts, though you would find yourself wondering why it couldn’t have been better assembled and packaged.