Advertisement
Subscribe
X

Connect with us

Do Dooni Chaar

The return of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor, a self-assured directorial debut, a fine slice of Delhi life, despite being marred by a muddled ending

Namrata Joshi

Updated on:

Starring: Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Kapoor, Archit Krishna
Directed by Habib Faisal
Rating: ***

F
or a majority of viewers, Do Dooni Chaar would hold tremendous nostalgic interest. It marks the return of Rishi and Neetu Kapoor—the young, romantic twosome of the ’70s. Here they play a middle-aged, middle-class Delhi couple—the Duggals—working hard to bring up their two bright children and trying to find a perfect balance between their needs, desires, dreams and indulgences. However, the film is also interesting because it makes for a self-assured debut by filmmaker Habib Faisal, formerly an NDTV cameraperson.

Do Dooni Chaar is not so much about story-telling, focused only on its twists and turns, as it is about presenting a slice of life. Any middle-class family that has built its home from scratch would identify with the Duggals and their struggles to graduate from owning a two-wheeler to a car. That’s where the title of the film also stems from. Faisal is bang on in getting the little details and nuances of Delhi’s middle-class culture in all its shabby glory—right from the nighties, sweaters and mufflers that the protagonists wear to the kitschy showcases and sticker-laden steel almirahs and the noisy neighbourhoods. The keen eye for detail also shows in the spread of quirky characters—the coaching-school owner to the corrupt Meerut cop—and the use of the varied Delhi lingo—from the Punjabi to the Haryanvi mix. Most of all, the film is interesting in showing an old economic order (typified by the senior Duggals) clashing and coexisting with the consumerist culture.

Faisal gets good support from the cast. Instead of playing the film as some kind of a starry comeback of Rishi-Neetu, the director keeps their presence low-key. They are one with the real-life characters they play. Even the two kids, Archit and Aditi, are just as real.

But the film does not quite reach the same level of fineness as the other recent Delhi films like Khosla Ka Ghosla and Oye Lucky Lucky Oye primarily because the narrative gets unwieldy and the filmmaker is unable to offer a neat resolution. The end becomes a muddle of high emotions, morals and stupid slapstick in making a case for the teaching profession. A little subtlety would have worked better.

High Fives

Bollywood

  1. Anjana Anjani
  2. Robot (dubbed)
  3. Dabangg
  4. We Are Family
  5. Peepli [Live]

Hollywood

  1. The Social Network
  2. Legends of the Guardians
  3. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
  4. The Town
  5. Easy A
Advertisement

Country

  1. The Boys of Fall (Kenny Chesney)
  2. All Over Me (Josh Turner)
  3. Roll With It (Easton Corbin)
  4. Our Kind of Love (Lady Antebellum)
  5. Come Back Song (Darius Rucker)

Courtesy: Film Information

Published At:

Tags

US