Rating: * ½ (one and a half stars)
Natural and man-made catastrophes have yielded some fabulous cinema. Think holocaust. Think Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Think 9/11. Think Kabir Khan’s New York. Demonetization finally gets its comeuppance in this poorly conceived and shakily directed OTT film about a godfearing law-abiding Maharashtrian family which chances upon a big bag full crisp 2,000 rupee notes, and how it changes their perception on life and money.
As a meditation on materialism, this film treads on the thinnest of ice unsure of whether to denounce the family for its growing greed or to …well…just play along with them. Finally the narrative chooses to do neither, or both .
The approach to the rather grim subject of middleclass consumerism is deliberately frothy. The utterly unsuitable background music plays as a parody of the Charlie Chaplin comedies missing out on both the comedy and pathos while trying to depict both.
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By mid-point the one-note plot runs out of steam and the plotting gets progressively banal.The conversations among the family members specially the sibling sound like forwarded whatsapp messages rather than what people say to each other at home.Or maybe this family is satiated with junk on the web.
As for the performances,Vinay Pathak and Ayesha Raza look convincing as a couple. In that very fine OTT series Made In Heaven , Pathak hid a dark secret(his homosexuality) from his wife (Raza again). Here in Chappad … it’s more materialistic less angst-filled. Both seasoned actors have an instinctive understanding of the Indian middleclass’ insecurities which they project with casual confidence.
The two young actors Siddharth Menon and Sheetal Menon playing the son and daughter want to cram in as much ‘acting’ as possible in every frame. Somebody should have reminded them to save up some of those expressions for future films.Sadly this mishmash of muddled materialism and hijacked morality is more of a deadend than a step forward for cinema of the post-demonetization era.
Chappad Phaad Ke restricts its exuberance to its title. Thereafter the only thing it hits, phaad ke, is strident notes.
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