A perfect amalgamation of mainstream and offbeat cinema
By Murtaza Ali
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews
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| Finding Fanny (2014) - By Homi Adajania |
Our Rating: 8.0
IMDb Ratings: 6.4
Genre: Drama | Comedy | Romance
IMDb Ratings: 6.4
Genre: Drama | Comedy | Romance
Cast: Deepika Padukone, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur
Country: India
Language: Hindi | English | Konkani
Runtime: 102 min
Color: Color
Summary: The film follows the journey of five dysfunctional friends who set out on a road trip in search of Fanny, the love-interest of the village's aging postman Ferdie.
Finding
Fanny is the third and latest offering from Indian filmmaker Homi Adajania.
Co-written by Kersi Khambatta and Adajania himself, Finding Fanny stars
Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dimple Kapadia, Deepika Padukone and Arjun
Kapoor in pivotal roles. The plot of Finding Fanny revolves around five queer
residents—a lovelorn senile postman, a voluptuous old vixen and her widowed
daughter-in-law with a heart of gold, a sullen mechanic left heartbroken by the
young widow, and a mercurial artist with a morbid obsession for curvaceous middle-aged
women—of a fictional Goan village of Pocolim marked by a state of dreamy torpor,
resonating with the melancholy of solitude perpetuated by an apparent absence
of physical love. Brought together under no less than bizarre circumstances, these five people undertake an enchanting road trip (perhaps to break the monotony enveloping their lives) which would change their lives forever. Finding Fanny poses several meaningful questions about love, a couple of which instantly comes to one's mind. (i). Which is greater, the pain we feel when our love goes unrequited or the elation when it gets reciprocated? (ii). Is it worth loving someone more than our life without even caring to figure out what that person thinks of us?
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| Naseeruddin Shah as Ferdie in Finding Fanny |
The
village of Pocolim in Finding Fanny is highly reminiscent of Macondo, City of Mirrors,
from One Hundred Years of Solitude and one can only wonder what kind of
influence the luminary work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have had on Adajania
whilst he wrote the first draft of the screenplay during his month long stay at
a village named Salvador do Mundo in Goa. But, Marquez doesn’t seem like the only
one to have influenced Adajania. A wide range of artists appear to have
influenced him in one way or the other: right from William Shakespeare to Charles
Dickens, Emir Kusturica to Wes Anderson, Saadat Hassan Manto to Gulzar. The
striking contrast between the movie’s humorous tone and its sombre mood reminds this
critic of a Hindi TV Series called Gubbare (1999–2000), which was
helmed by a high profile creative team that consisted of Gulzar, Vishal
Bhardwaj and Saurabh Shukla, among others. In addition to depicting the endless
drudgeries of human life, Adajani’s film also shows us those rare moments of
extreme ecstasy and agony (consider the sequence wherein a
newly married bridegroom kisses his wife and moments later chokes on a piece of
his own wedding cake) that seem to punctuate the mundaneness that encompasses
our lives.
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| Pankaj Kapur and Dimple Kapadia in Finding Fanny |
Amidst
the ever-changing business horizon, Hindi cinema finds itself at the
crossroads. There’s no denying that the formula for movie’s commercial success
has changed drastically over the last decade or so ever since advent of
multiplexes. The urban viewers have grown smarter while the rural viewers have
become choosier. The Censor Board has also grown more mature with time. All
this has made the medium more formidable than it has ever been, thus giving
rise to a kind of cinema that is not only richer in content but also more
potent in terms of propagation. However, Hindi cinema still has a long way to travel
before it can match the superlative global standards, not only in terms of
technique but also in terms of treatment. As essential as it is to the
continuous evolution of the medium, art cinema is far from being the need of
the time; what we actually need is a hybrid cinema of sorts.
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| Arjun Kapoor and Deepika Padukone in Finding Fanny |
But,
what's really disconcerting is that Indian commercial cinema has of late become
an inept instrument in the hands of a bunch of money mongrels ill-equipped to understand
the intricacies of filmmaking. We need to explore all the available options and
search for a middle path wherein a successful trade-off can be established
between the two streams of cinema, mainstream and offbeat, in order to reach
the best possible outcome. In recent times, Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny comes
across as perhaps the best example of the kind of hybrid cinema that can prove
to be a great savior for our highly volatile film industry. By making a motion
picture like Finding Fanny, Adajania has demonstrated, against all odds and in
the utmost comprehensive manner, how the marriage of creativity and star power
can be seamlessly brought about while still operating within moderate budgets. Finding
Fanny is a perfect amalgamation of mainstream and offbeat
cinema, and its early success only shows that the formula holds a lot of
promise, and, if leveraged upon, can become a viable option for creative
filmmakers to realize their dream projects.
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| A Still from Homi Adajania's Finding Fanny |
Overall,
Finding Fanny is an important work of Hindi cinema that will most certainly prove
to be great source of inspiration for aspiring filmmakers. The movie seems to
work well on both the technical and emotional fronts: The cinematography,
editing and music are all topnotch; the acting is also solid all around and there is enough room for character development. While Deepika
and Arjun put up a decent show, it’s the veterans who steal the show with their
supernal performances. While Naseeruddin Shah and Dimple Kapadia are absolutely mesmerizing to watch in their respective roles (Shah’s low-key performance tugs
at the heart; Kapadia’s lively portrayal packs a punch), it’s
Pankaj Kapur’s portrayal of the obsessed painter, Don Pedro Cleto Colaco, that
stands as first among equals in the view of this critic. In its essence, Finding Fanny come across as a meditation on life and death. But, there is a
great contrast in the manner the movie approaches life and death. While it presents
life as a burdensome ordeal, it strangely treats death with a touch of levity
and indifference as if to mock our frivolous existence. The movie also serves
to be an interesting case study on the lives of the Goan Catholics. The film is
available in both English and Hindi but for this critic the latter version
stands out. The movie pacing is quite slow to begin with which may not
particularly impress the casual viewers, but a patient viewer will cherish it
for a long time to come. A must watch for those on the lookout for a breath of
fresh air!
Readers, please feel free to share your opinion by leaving your comments. As always your valuable thoughts are highly appreciated!
Finding Fanny (2014) Trailer (YouTube)
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Loved the movie. Nice clean and with some superb acting that seems to be missing in recent movies. There is an element of lust, but very well portrayed, not like the standard run of the Mill movies of late.... Dimple / Nasser / Pankaj Kapur.. Simply superb and outstanding.. They proved their veterans tag and show why they are what they are... Deepika, as they say, eaten up royally by Dimple, she and Arjun Kapur, might as well have not been there, but then, you need some support..... What will be a shame if one finds at the end of the year on the Awards, that Deepika Padukone is selected for this movie and the other three left out....
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that the movie has earned 30 crore or so at the box office is the presence of Deepika and to some extent that of Arjun Kapoor. Leaving her acting skills aside, I would give credit to Deepika for doing this movie in the first place (I think Sonam Kapoor and Imran Khan had rejected it) that too for a much reduced fee (she, however, did strike a deal so as to get a good share in the profits). But, I still feel that the movie was not marketed well... Shah, Kapur and Kapadia didn't promote it much... only Arjun and Deepika were seen doing their bit on TV to promote it... so, the right audience just couldn't be targeted. Otherwise, the response could have been better. As far as the three veterans go, I absolutely agree with everything you have said in your comment. Thanks for taking the time out and sharing your thoughts!!! :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the review, I really wanted to watch this and managed to miss it upon release... I hope to catch it at the soonest!
ReplyDeleteThe pleasure is all mine... I am sure that you will enjoy the film as and when you watch it!
ReplyDeleteIs this film hit
ReplyDeleteConsidering its moderate budget, it has done considerably good at the Box Office. So, yes, it can be called a hit.
ReplyDeleteI watched this movie today and truly liked it. I think the IMBb rating it has is not just. It should be certainly something around eight or at least seven and half. Also I am surprised as to why It did not win any major award in any field. This is one among very few such Bollywood movies after watching which I felt like like reading some critic review on it.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first read from Potpourri of Vestiges and I must say that I got some sense of satisfaction after reading this so well written piece of yours. Thanks!
Thanks for sharing your valuable thoughts... I am really glad that you enjoyed reading the article. Do check out some of our others articles as well!
DeleteSpeaking of Finding Fanny, I feel that it's one brilliant film... it's a real pity that such films often fail to get their due in a country like ours. You see cinema in our country at this point in time is not in the hands of people who understand and appreciate art. We have a great potential but often the people with money end up dictating their terms and so Indie cinema is our only hope... the people want to watch good cinema... it's just that they are not exposed to it. Demand creates Supply and Supply creates Demand... it's like a cycle and so the key is to have more such indie filmmakers with the attitude to make unadulterated films.
As to IMDb's ratings, they are user driven and so one cannot really blindly rely on them but they offer reasonable guidelines to judge movies.