Dasvidaniya
Cast: Vinay Pathak, Neha Dhupia, Sorrow bhais, Morose ladies
Direction: Shashant Shah
Rating: **
It’s a sad sad sad world. Mousy man at the age of 37 is told that he doesn’t have many more days to continue with his dull-dull-dull existence. So, he draws up a kind of a laundry list of things to do. Alas, entertainment is not one of them.
Instead, Mr Pathak takes off on a self-pitying trip which includes buying a red car. Heavens, all those who want tomato-colour wheels, put up your hands! None? Aah thought so.Come to think of it, everything is so darn earnest and morose that when it all crawls to an end, you’re quite relieved to say Dasvidaniy, Dasvidaniya. . Dasvi.. daniya.
Alas, the central idea is as familiar as your oldest T-shirt. It’s been done right from Kurosawa’s Ikiru and Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand to the recent Jack Nicholson tear-strainer The Bucket List. Truly, why narrate an oft-heard story when you can’t equal it..not by any stretch of the imagination? In fact, the tempo is so self-indulgently slow that you close your eyes, count sheep, snore, wake up, count some more sheep and wake up..and then sprinkle some water on your face. Mineral.
Next: Pathak drinks (booze), tells his boss to go jump in a well, beds a Russian hooker (what to do with this man, really?), meets an overseas friend, and learns to play the guitar maybe because he saw the promos of Rock On!!
Snag: you just can’t muster up enough empathy for Pathak who dominates every frame as if he were a superstar. He’s a fine actor but this effort displays so much footage of him that you wonder if he’s Laurence Olivier or De Niro. To be fair, the direction by first-timer Shashant Shah is unusually low-key. Still a negative virtue does not make for quality cinema.
On the acting front, Neha Dhupia as an old flame (what to do with this man, really?), Rajat Kapoor as a buddy and Sarita Joshi as a TV-soap-manic mum do their jobs efficiently. Pathak is efficient too. Come to think of it, everything is so darn earnest and morose that when it all crawls to an end, you’re quite relieved to say Dasvidaniy, Dasvidaniya. . Dasvi.. daniya.
Also watch: Khalid's Video review of Dasvidania: Part 1 | Part 2