Simply Dimple...

This is 106 minutes of things going wrong. Very wrong. What could have made an interesting film short, crisp and humorous, turns laboured, tiring and falls flat on the face.The film starts with a lot of promise and with the kind of humour that would immediately appeal to an audience looking for a light hearted film. 65-year-old Sudha Mishra ( Dimple Kapadia) is on her way back in a prepaid taxi grumbling at the taxi driver.

She is returning after a not very pleasant trip to the USA. She is not happy with the marriage of her son and is nagging about him and his wife. It takes all but a few seconds to know that she is a control freak and is dissatisfied with everything around and everyone too. A month ago she had left the carefully kept home of her to the care of her model niece.

She dotes on her fish in the aquarium and the money plant and leaves serious instructions that that they shall be taken care of. Also no one shall use her wash room and her bed. The niece, however, has to leave on a shoot and thus delegates the care taking to her fiancé Sumit (Sumit Suri), an absent minded fun loving ever to help guy.

He, in turn, hands over the flat to his friend Neerav (Anand Tiwari) who badly needs a place for his on-the-run gal Gopa. Unfortunately, Neerav’s friend Ravi ( Manu Rishi) steps in and he is given the task of taking care of the house. He too gets into trouble and leaves the house to his girlfriend who, in turn, introduces her brother an aspiring boxing champion with transgender tendencies and his blackmailer.

Every time the keys of the house changes hands, the fish takes a beating and is required to be replaced from the local supplier. The guy at the local Aquarium Pummy (Manjot singh) makes money though is dazed at why all this is happening. Sudha on her return is always on the phone and strongly believes that the house has been haunted with a ghost. What a premise and an opportunity!! Unfortunately the end product is a disaster and even the few footfalls in the theatre are not eager to journey through the short film.

The problem with the film is that it piles up on you with a hurry that leaves you tired. The move of events lack a sincerity in handling and resultantly what could have been a wonderfully rib ticking narration turns into a huge yawn and the viewers are forced to concentrate on the soft drink popcorn combine. Of the cast, Manjot Singh as the guy selling fish is good and cool. His lost look and innocence is worth watching.

The film surely is built around the gorgeous Dimple Kapadia, who returns from self exile every once in a while reminding Hindi cinema how it failed to make good use of talent. This time round she has nothing much to do. She just decorates the script with her grace and persona. The film is worth a watch only as a tribute to the actress who is ageing, but with grace and class.

-L Ravichander