Piku: Movie Review

They are opinionated. They are quirky. You can spot them in a mile. Clad in monkey caps they are visible in every tourist spot. They are compulsive travelers (read: The Bengali Approach to Tourism) and start every year by marking the Durga Puja holidays in their calendar. They squirm when the less cultured (that is pretty much everyone else) struggle to correctly pronounce Kolkata (“Cole Kaata and not Call Kata, you fool”) and believe in the superiority of Tagore songs to any other form of music. And they love their food.The morning begins with the big question; “Aaj ki hawbey?” which literally means what is going to happen today? When a Bengali asks you that question do not think of world events. He or she is asking you to reel out the all that will be cooked and served during the day. After food, the hypochondriac in the family will take center stage. They will worry about indigestion and its impact on both ends of the alimentary canal. Self-medication is the answer to good health. That means homeopathy medicines (eg Arnica/ Nux Vomica) for all minor ailments and Gelusil or Aqua Ptychotis for all major forms of indigestion. A true blue Bengali will agree with all of the above. Piku is about one such Bengali family but with their own quirks.Bhaskar Banerji (pronounced Bhaashkawr) played by Amitabh Bachchan is obsessed with what someone in my family politely referred to as “morning ablutions”. He is a seventy year old widower and lives with his thirty year old daughter Piku played by Deepika Padukone. Technically speaking he lives in Chittaranjan Park in Delhi. Ask anyone and they will tell you CR Park is a slice of Kolkata that has been scooped up and transplanted in a different city.Bhaskar Banerji is a hypochondriac who measures his body temperature every hour and updates his daughter about the details of his daily motion (or lack of it) in graphic detail wherever she is – in an office meeting or on a dinner date. He is cantankerous, opinionated and keeps his daughter Piku and man servant on their toes with his attention seeking behavior. Rana Choudhury (played by Irrfan) is the owner of a car rental company who lands up driving the father daughter duo from Delhi to Kolkata. This story is about him.Writer Juhi Chaturvedi and director Shoojit Sircar make a winning combination. In Vicky Donor they take a ticklish subject like sperm donation and carry it off effortlessly without making it crude or preachy. In Piku, they tackle potty humor with uncommon elan. The script endears because it cleverly sidesteps the predictable. The relationship between Rana and Piku is given a nice twist. The relationship between the father and daughter is warm without being syrupy.The music by Anupam Roy is catchy but in the film apart from the song used in the journey the rest of it seems a force fit. But I found the songs very hummable.https://youtu.be/2__nNm0NK4ADeepika finally comes of age as an actor. She carries off a range of emotions with ease. Irrfan remains understated and effortless as usual. Amitabh Bachchan’s character is a little too exaggerated and almost turns into a caricature. I wish Shoojit Sircar had worked more on getting Amitabh’s Bengali accented Hindi and English right. It sounds extremely false. Mr Bachchan, sorry but I expect more from you. But the character played by Amitabh Bachchan will certainly remind you of some relative of yours. Someone who is cranky, weird and still endearing – that’s for sure.Overall, this movie can be summed up as “Pikuliar but endearing”———-Join me on twitter @AbhijitBhaduriWant to download the cartoon of Amitabh? <click here>