Rating: ***
Debutante director Suhrita Das’ Tu Meri Poori Kahani,in spite of its flaws, is that precious little baby that you want to cuddle close to your chest and protect it from the dushman zamana. It is a petal-soft tale of an ambitious girl from a broken home(this is where Mahesh Bhatt the film’s creator and co-writer comes in) who kicks the ladder on the way up, and then kicks herself from being such an ingrate.
The little film with a big heart is not afraid to show its heroine Anika(Hiranya Ojha) with all her flaws. Anika is selfish, brutally so, and hooked to booze even in her moments of triumph. Worse, she lets go of the man who nurtures her into fame.
I found Arhaan Patel’s selfless Rohan a little too noble to be real. But then there are people who just give and give , as there are people who just take and take. This is how the law of the universe balances itself out.
Though the idealization of love and the reverse emotions, is a little naïve and wet behind the ears(hero happy singing in subways, heroine facing two of the most lecherous casting couchers ever witnessed on screen, the villain behaving as though he is about to burst all his blood vessels) the film has many tender and heartwarming moments between the lead pair, especially in the first-half when Rohan takes the boozed Anika home(poodle logic) .
Their domestic togetherness with Rohan’s dementia-ridden father(Uday Chandra, heartbreaking) are the highlights of the nubile narrative.
Add Anu Malik’s sweet if not pathbreaking tunes which carpet the film , wail to wail, like Aashiqui , and we have a film that deserves a voice and a face at a time when shrieking action films are flooding the theatres.
Since the director is Mahesh Bhatt’s protegee his influence pervades the plot : that entire single-mother, absentee father and illegitimate offspring is Zakhm revisited, except that Nagarjuna in that film was the filmmaker with two homes. Here it is Tigmanshu Dhulia who comes up with a well-meaning but over-studied performance.
It is a pleasure to see Juhi Babbar as the wife and mother torn between her man and daughter Anika. She has one big sequence when she ticks off Anika , and Juhi kills it. Why not more of her? I loved the way the film brings back forgotten actors: Uday Chandra, Avtar Gill, Juhi Babbar.
As for the lead pair,Hiranya Ojha and Arhaan Patel do well enough, although the girl gives herself away while expressing some of the more complex emotions. Shammi Duhan(who looks like Chandan Roy Sanyal) as the psychotic villain is way over-the-top , and disrupts the even tone of narration.
For all its flaws, I came away from Tu Meri Poori Kahani with a smile. That rarely happens these days.
