There’s a certain road trip in the movie (no spoiler-alert for this, you’ve seen the trailer) from Delhi to Kolkata. Amidst all the things on the carrier over the taxi, sits the commode-chair (Amitabh Bachchan’s makeshift lavatory). That’s how much director Shoojith Sirkar wants to drive home the point that this story upholds poop values—the frequencies, the properties, and the propriety surrounding it!
It’s much like Dr Baldev Chaddha from Vicky Donor, Shoojith’s previous outing (played by Annu Kapoor) who wears a t-shirt that says ‘Do it’ with sperm-inspired graffiti, and has a car hanging that looks like a teeny sperm! The conviction on corporeal tendencies is the same in 'Piku' as well. Poop is the point of discussion all the time from which none digresses.
Piku (Deepika Padukone) works as an architect, and is known to be quite hot-headed and rude. Her father, 70-year-old Bhaskor Banerjee (Amitabh Bachchan) is a proud Bengali, with recurring poop concerns. Their relationship is amusing; the clingy father who says his daughter is financially and sexually independent, and therefore doesn’t need to get married. And if at all she does, she needs to take care of him as well. When a prospective suitor tries to explain that he’d like to marry a “nice” girl, Bhaskor takes his trip, questioning his definition of “nice”; now, that’s unusual for a father, but that’s what we’d expect out of someone who crafted the very witty and indulging Vicky Donor.
Rana Chaudhary (Irrfan) joins the gang as the owner-driver of his cab company, and drives them from Delhi to Kolkata since his drivers smartly bailed on him, owing to Piku’s excessive tantrums. Like every other road journey, or let’s say during extended periods of forced company, people start shedding their inhibitions. We start to see more than dumping disorders; the story traverses through ideas of cultural migration, roots and on other familial trajectories once they get to Kolkata.
The story that was so believable, as though the characters were living right in the next room that you rented out to an eccentric father-daughter duo, slowly starts to slip away from its initial momentum in the second half.
Despite the fact that the flaws of the characters are made more prominent in the movie, like the selfishness of Bhaskor or Piku being difficult beyond reasons others can see, the movie doesn’t endorse soul searching or digging up fundamental troubles. It’s more on the lines of जो है सो है (what’s there is there).
The high point of the movie is of course the poop talk. Novelty in concept and narrative is great to see but when it falls flat in the second half, it’s a little disappointing.
Bachchan is great as Bhaskor. There’s the broken Hindi that he speaks, which is precious addition to the character and so credible for someone who has been in Kolkata for most part his life. Bachchan’s inimitable style in presenting his character comes across as amicable. His punctuations in sentences—those slight grunts and ‘ehs’, make you smile.
Deepika, as Piku, shows us just how to stand tall (figuratively first) among actors like Bachchan and Irrfan. From a face that falls in a split second at the sight of her ill father, the faint smile that plays on her lips when she gets back to home in Kolkata, the subtle change in her behaviour towards Rana, to eyes that brim over with a deadpan expression in the end, she has played every note right.
Irrfan is very much in character as well. His effortlessness is affective, but it seems as though his character just wasn’t well thought out.
Moushumi Chatterjee, as Bhaskor’s punch bag is a good addition.
The music is pleasant and the cinematography works well around the story. Written by Juhi Chaturvedi, 'Piku' explores relationships and their nuances through bowel movements. Only, it ends a bit too abruptly, and somehow the funny innuendos start to blow hot and cold. All said and done, poop details were drawn out to utter hilarity in the first half, and therein go my money and rating. Somehow, there were food frames juxtaposed with these details, but they didn’t look odd or out of place.
No wonder some actually refer to the end result of their bowel growls as ‘bakin’ a cake’!
Onmanorama Rating: 3.5/5