Movie Review : Barfi!

Rating : 4.5/5
Genre : Drama
Year : 2012
Running time : 2 hours 30 minutes
Director : Anurag Basu
Cast : Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D’Cruz, Saurabh Shukla, Akaash Khurana, Roopa Ganguly
Kid rating : G

With Barfi, I’d expected a half-decent film. What I got was a spectacular one. It is rare that you get more than you expect; a good day ’twas then.

Barfi (Kapoor) is a deaf-mute happy-go-lucky young man, full of good humor and happiness. He meets Shruti (d’Cruz) and the two fall in love. However Shruti is persuaded by her mother (Ganguly) to choose Ranjeet Sengupta, a well-to-do young man as husband, instead of the impoverished Barfi. Shruti moves to Calcutta with Ranjeet. When she meets Barfi some years later, he has a young woman in tow. Shruti realizes to her despair that he, apparently, has gotten over her and moved on while she hasn’t . . .

This film is simple and charming. Set in the Darjeeling of the1970s, it seems almost like a tale from one of Ruskin Bond’s books. Barfi is told from many different view-points; at times it is a police inspector (Saurabh Shukla) narrating, at times a friend of Barfi’s, and at times Shruti. Barfi has the sweet-sad mix of emotions much like “Life is Beautiful” although the stories aren’t comparable. It is the tale of a simple, clear-hearted man. In his life there is a hope and joy, sadness and pathos, love and betrayal and disappointment. Each of these emotions is finely etched and put out for us to see and feel until we are moved. I wept buckets.

And then it has it’s comedic moments, very Chaplinesque and home-grown in nature. There is a lot of detail and nuance in this film. Anurag Basu as writer and director displays a keen sensibility for the affairs of the heart. The people in this film are each swayed by it to some degrees and do with it what they will. But they rise even in times of heart-breaking sorrow, displaying a fineness of the soul. They are better than they can be, giving away the joys that they could have had, and that makes Barfi the feel-good, uplifting film that it is.

Ranbir Kapoor is superb as Barfi. As the silent young man, he tempers Barfi’s effervescent joy with an agreeable, forgiving nature. As if Rockstar was not enough Ranbir comes up with another fantastic performance to highlight his meteoric rise to superstardom in these short five years (he debuted in Saawariya in 2007). I’m in awe of his work in this film.

Priyanka plays the autistic Jhilmil Chatterjee. While watching the trailer I was skeptical of Priyanka’s ability to carry off this difficult role (I was cringing anticipating another ham-handed portrayal of autism), but she does it with aplomb. Kudos ! The new girl on the Hindi-movie block, Ileana D’Cruz, is quite impressive. With her elfin face, and sultry looks Ileana is quite a delicate beauty and plays heart-breaker Shruti. She is also a pretty good actress. In a scene in the film, during the song “Phir Le Aaya Dil”, you can see the emotions flit across her face, as Shruti, now Mrs. Shruti Sengupta, chances upon the-love-of-her-life Barfi after a gap of some years. He is as charming and guileless as ever. She is fettered by her marriage, and he has Jhilmil. Alas!

I cannot fault Basu on much in this film. I loved the characters, felt each of them well-developed and real people in their own right. Perfectly paced, this film is a lingering tale, best taken in in long, slow draughts. The songs are a marvel. Music by Pritam, the voices of Mohit Chauhan, Rekha Bharadwaj and lyrics by Swanand Kirkire – could one ask for more ? My favorites are Arijit Singh’s rendition of “Phir Le Aaya Dil“, Papon and Sunidhi Chauhan sung “Kyon“, and Nikhil Paul George’s “Main Kya Karoon“.

The flaw in this film (and it is well-nigh ignorable given what this film does) is that the film glosses over reality. Call me cynical, but life isn’t that easy – not for the deaf-mute son of a poor driver. But Barfi as a young boy turns up in immaculate middle-class clothes and sneakers. As a young man, smilingly wrangling money from his old dad, he is well-dressed enough to chance a waltz with the boss’s daughter. No frayed collars, no strains of hardship – not in Darjeeling, and not in Calcutta. So that’s my nit-pick – the fact that this film is so darn pretty – it insists on presenting stuff all glossily packaged. Given that the point of the story is philosophical, not material, it’s not a big deal, except it looks . . . odd. Sigh!

The only other place that could have used more work was Ileana’s makeup as an old woman. (The geriatric makeup made everyone look like everyone else, like they were some long-lost cousins, when they weren’t). Old woman Shruti seemed to develop papery skin and sprout a shock of short, wayward, grey hair which enveloped her delicate face almost disproportionately – making it seem like a wig, which it was, but you know what I mean. And yes, I am aware that people with bad haircuts do exist; it is just that I’d rather not see them on film, especially a film which does so well on etching the finer details.

To wrap-up folks, I loved the film. It is, barring other outstanding newcomers, (and there might be none, considering that we are well on our way to October) my pick for best film of 2012 (and man, oh man, I seem to be saying that a lot these days.)

Kidwise : Clean and classy, this film is kid-safe, even for the young ones. This gets the rare G rating, even rarer for a film this great.