'Motichoor Chaknachoor' tried too hard to be the ultimate love story
Compatibility, consent, all these extremely important things that people usually consider in a marriage, are non-existent in this film.
Sometimes sweet, sometimes downright sad, with every dialogue spewing sarcasm and Athiya Shetty speaking in a weird accent of Bhopali dislect (she should have put more hours into the voice training sessions) – these might be the exact elements to describe 'Motichoor Chaknachoor' – an odd couple's 'ideal' chemistry.
Released in November 2019, the Nawazuddin Siddiqui starrer tries too hard to be the ultimate comedy and love story at the same time. Also, Nawazuddin and Athiya make an awful on-screen couple.
Pushpinder Tyagi (Nawazuddin) is a thirty-something year old NRI from Dubai whose life's mission is to get married. The despair reeking from every action and every dialogue of this character is cringe worthy.
For example, in one of the scenes he says to his younger brother "I do not care if the girl is fat, bald or short, all I want is just a girl!" Ahem.
Watch the trailer of 'Motichoor Chaknachoor' here
Compatibility, consent, all these extremely important things that people usually consider in a marriage, are non-existent in this film. In another scene, Pushpinder tells a girl that all a marriage needs is "one girl and one boy".
Nawazuddin, being the brilliant actor that he is, somehow pulls through the film but even then, I could not help but think why this Wasseypur genius chose this role.
Anita Awasthi (Athiya) aka Ani is a girl who dreams of settling abroad after marriage. So she keeps rejecting potential grooms who cannot take her abroad, because all she wants is to go to some foreign land and post pictures of it on social media. She is the rural version of Kareena Kapoor's 'Poo' from K3G.
Pushpinder's mother (played by Vibha Chibber) would not marry off her son without a hefty dowry so like Ani, she too rejects proposals where they do not promise enough cash and gold ornaments.
Ani's aunt advises her to coax Pushpinder into marrying her because apparently, two people desperate for marriage make a happy couple. Ani goes on flirting with Pushpinder but he is not convinced and agrees to marry someone his mother chooses.
Now this is where it got particularly cringy. This potential bride is constantly made fun of because of her weight, so much so that she is called a "baby elephant".
The screenwriter perhaps thought we are still living in an ancient era where fat shaming women and terming them as 'smart-alecks' just because they speak their mind would be funny. But these were specifically the areas where I believe the film died terrible deaths.
After his engagement breaks down, Pushpinder and Ani elope and get married because she thought it would be her ticket to Dubai and he was trigger happy to just get married. The families get upset at the beginning but eventually agree to the relationship. It seemed like a love story from the 80s.
On a more positive note, cast members who played the role of Ani's aunt (Karuna Pandey), her mother (Navni Parihar) and Pushpinder's brother (Abhishek Rawat) were really good and made the film more tolerable.
Small budgeted films in and out of Netflix can wow viewers, and they have in the past (Jolly LLB, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, Badhai Ho, Article 15, Delhi Crime, the list can go on and on) but this one does not.