Movie Review: Bareilly Ki Barfi

Bareilly Ki Barfi Review

Cast: Ayushmann Khurrana, Rajkummar Rao, Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathy, Seema Pahwa

Director: Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari 

Quick take: A quirky comedy that will leave you happy

Rating: 4/5

Director Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari wowed us with the powerful film with a bang on message about education for girls – Nil Battey Sannata -- and she's whipped up another neat gem in Bareilly Ki Barfi. The film, which is based on the French novel The Ingredients Of Love by Nicolas Barreau picks up just the right rhythm at the beginning and doesn't lose it till the end.

Bitti Mishra ( Kriti Sanon) is a happy-go-lucky girl who is the apple of her father's eye. Like most Indian mothers, Bitti’s mother too wants the darling daughter to get hitched to a good guy soon. Bitti wants a partner who understands her and more importantly, who accepts her the way she is. She feels she's found that special someone when she reads a book called Bareilly Ki Barfi and finds herself described in the pages. She longs to meet the writer, whom she feels is her soulmate and her search makes her cross the paths of two men – Chirag Dubey, played by Ayushmann Khurrana, who owns a printing press and Pritam Vidrohi, the supposed writer of the book, played by Rajkummar Rao. A love triangle ensues and whether true love triumphs or not forms the crux of the film.

The writing is the soul of the film and full marks to Nitesh Tiwari and Shreyas Jain for coming-up with a top-notch screenplay and some crackling dialogue. Even when the proceedings go slack, the wordplay perks them up. They are colloquial and authentic and bring on the most laughs. Ashwiny had shown that she’s a sensitive director in Nil Battey Sannata. Here, the story is more lightweight but even in a comedy the director has managed to add an emotional punch. The best scenes of the film are those involving Kriti Sanon and Pankaj Tripathy, her father. They don’t speak much out-loud but even their silences and gestures reveal all about the bond they share. And the scenes between Tripathy and Seema Pahwa, who plays his wife, are a hoot too. You laugh when we see him conversing with the fan in the night as she snores away to glory and yet you do notice the affection beneath the indifference. Care has been taken to maintain a small town milieu. The setting, the art direction, the background score, the sound design all make you believe you’re sneaking a peek into real lives than watching a film.

Kriti Sanon has grown leaps and bounds as an actor here. She’s comfortable playing a small-town girl who is content to rebel in her own small ways but who loves her parents and neighbourhood too much to consider running away for good. Ayushmann Khurrana suits the part of a forlorn lover who isn’t sure he can handle heartbreak a second time. But the actor who walks away with the barfi is Rajkummar Rao. He’s too good as the friend who is cajoled into becoming a rowdy and his transformations from an introvert into an extreme extrovert both in terms of body language and speech patterns are spot on. Pankaj Tripathy and Seema Pahwa also shine as the bickering husband and wife. Mention must also be made of Javed Akhtar who has narrated the film superbly.

All-in-all, Bareilly Ki Barfi is a good second film from Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari and gives her a chance to prove her versatility. Watch the film for some good, clean fun. It will give you ample laughs throughout and you’ll walk away from the theatre with a satisfied smile on your face...