Two of my closest friends and reliable cultural barometers had entirely contrasting views on Gulabo Sitabo. One found it so intolerable he couldn't last even half the movie, and the other was moved by what he described as a terrific layered and nuanced experience.
After seeing it for myself, I'm gonna split the difference and say it was a potentially beautiful story that turned out a terrible movie. Unlike my previous Shoojit Sircar experience with Piku the tone here (like Amitabh Bachchan's oversized prosthetic nose) struck me as completely wrong. What should have been a bleak vehicle about a pathetic rat-like scavenger with grandiose dreams, where the humor should come in biting irony, is painfully shoehorned into a sitcom with grating "comedy scene wala" background music. Ayushman Khurana's character exists solely because someone wanted to sign on Bachchan and Khurana and put it on the marketing blitz.. It's a part not worthy of the actor and dilutes the film's anchor, which is Bachchan's Mirza character. Even the end of what feels like a 5 hour slogfest is ruined by an imbecilic coda.
I say Amitabh is surprisingly good as a wizened wretched geezer. If they had made it with the right tone he had the chops to give a moving performance. But now that's just a load of coulda-shoulda-yada-yada.
After seeing it for myself, I'm gonna split the difference and say it was a potentially beautiful story that turned out a terrible movie. Unlike my previous Shoojit Sircar experience with Piku the tone here (like Amitabh Bachchan's oversized prosthetic nose) struck me as completely wrong. What should have been a bleak vehicle about a pathetic rat-like scavenger with grandiose dreams, where the humor should come in biting irony, is painfully shoehorned into a sitcom with grating "comedy scene wala" background music. Ayushman Khurana's character exists solely because someone wanted to sign on Bachchan and Khurana and put it on the marketing blitz.. It's a part not worthy of the actor and dilutes the film's anchor, which is Bachchan's Mirza character. Even the end of what feels like a 5 hour slogfest is ruined by an imbecilic coda.
I say Amitabh is surprisingly good as a wizened wretched geezer. If they had made it with the right tone he had the chops to give a moving performance. But now that's just a load of coulda-shoulda-yada-yada.