Despite being laden with cliches and an outlandish portrayal of mental illness (certainly, can’t be overlooked), there’s a spark in Aanand L Rai’s latest ‘Atrangi Re’, all credits to the ultimate Bollywood fusion that was long lost in the romance genre. It begins with a typical boy-meets-girl template albeit with some unparalleled scenarios wherein Vishu, a medical student from Delhi, originally hailing from Tamil Nadu (huh…preciseness matters!) is forcibly married to Rinku.
Fortunately, both the lead characters are already committed to their respective partners and so they agree to part ways once everything is settled.
It is within that “everything” that Rai stages his trademark style, making you fall in love with the characters, setting, visuals, and every bit of it. Coming back to the story, Rinku relives the hardships and tenderness of her “epic love saga”, falling in love with Sajjad Ali Khan, a magician and quite a mystical character. And what forms further is a complex and innovative attempt of storytelling, involving two men and a woman.
Giving a soul to this fusion is A.R Rahman’s music and the enticing background score. Leaving aside the package, the story of Atrangi Re (written by Himanshu Sharma) is new, conceptual but goes slightly more on the uneven side, nonetheless, the performances and storytelling make up for the void space.
(Spoiler Alert!) Undoubtedly, the concept is new and quite interesting but, the major letdown is the film failing to live up to its central subject, the mental disorder- Schizophrenia. Themed upon it, the film does make a strong impression by the end of the first half but, just tries to wrap the subject in the second half with an array of cliched scenes. It really could have been a twist-filled fair, but, leaving that, Atrangi Re is a good one-time watch, standing out to its title.
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