Turning 30

Cast: Purab Kohli, Gul Panag, Siddharth Makkar, Tillotama Shome, Jeneva Talwar, Anita Kanwar, Rahul Singh, Sameer Malhotra

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava

Hollywood has given innumerable chick flicks namely the likes of 13 Going On 30, Sex And The City, Bridget Jones Diary, Clueless among others. However, Bollywood has never really experimented much in this domain. Not too long ago filmmaker Rajshree Ojha burnt her fingers with her attempt Aisha and now Alankrita Shrivastava is trying her hands with a chick flick Turning 30. The film is about an urban woman Naina (Gul Panag), living in Mumbai and how her life takes a turn when she hits the age of 30. To begin with, her stable boyfriend Rishab (Siddharth Makkar) dumps her for a richer and hotter girl. And then she loses her job.

Fighting with her mother's insistence to get her married Naina somehow manages to get a hold of her life when her college affair Jay (Purab Kohli) who comes back and proposes her for marriage. Now whether she marries him or he just becomes her rebound case and how she gets her life together follows through the rest of the plot. Turning 30 takes off very well but suddenly turns into a tripe plot. Repetition is a recurring issue in the film. The fact that Naina doesn't come to terms with her break up and keeps making attempts of getting back with Rishab is also reinstated several times. Despite that neither do you feel for the character nor does her emotional turmoil touch you.

Moreover, the film appears straight out of novel. Director Alankrita Shrivastava seemingly appears to be a big fan of chick lit or chick flicks and produces a mishmash of all of them. The screenplay is exactly the way one would visualize a scene while reading a book. Another sore point is the dialogues which sound very lyrical and bookish as if one is reading them out and the film is 80 % in English. The music isn't appeasing either.

However, Turning 30 does have some light moments, specially the interaction between Gul and her two friends Ruksana (Jeneva Talwar) and Malini (Tillotama Shome) but they are few and far in between. Purab Kohli is decent while Siddharth Makkar acts well. Ira Dubey stands out even in a cameo. B-town transporter of desi political and crime exotica Prakash Jha goes urban as a producer to explore the feelings of a thirty year old hottie in this Bollywood explanation of its sex and the city.

Helmed by first timer writer director Alankrita Shrivastava, this urban comedy about a nearing thirty urban career girl whose fondness for a whole host of unattractive addictions has gone a long way in putting the screws to her romantic life and her self-esteem is more style than substance. The nearly 2 hour flick is padded with those trendy garments in which we see our colleagues and friends roaming around us and the movie feels exceedingly familiar too, so much so that most of the plot turns can be guessed well before they happen.

The scarcity of clever quips makes the movie lengthy but still, there is still something satisfying about the effort. The movie is nice and naughty for the older teens who get identified with Naina (Gul Panag), her casting comes as a good news as she effortlessly grapples with heartbreak and a crisis in the film where she plays an advertising executive who had just broken from a relationship, has a prestigious project to handle at work, she is about to enter into her 30’s and she is still waiting. She is confused about love and doesn’t know what is right for her. As Naina fights her anxiety and fears about being 30 years old with her friends nicely played by Tillotama and Jeneva Talwar, enters Purab Kohli her ex-flame who along with Naina’s friends make her realize that there's a lot of growing up to be done. Naina broken relationship keeps haunting her, she gets cheated in office and couldn’t decide between her broken boyfriend who keeps haunting or the ex-flame Purab who has comeback. Suddenly the same Naina gets the strength to fight a case against her bosses and even write a novel Agreed one of her friend who plays a lesbian in the movie finds her writing skills but we needed some explanation on that. Needless to guess, the movie ends up at a bookstore where Naina signs her autographed copy to her once haunting lover and moving on in the arms of her comeback vehicle Purab. Gul Panag and Purab shine in this urban comedy which has the routine ups and downs but sadly they are not emotional.

It’s stylish, sassy, even naughty at a time but doesn’t connect emotionally overall as most of the part are in English. First timer writer director Alankrita Shrivastava comes up with an idea but not a proper script, it’s like planning a house with all the amenities but alas the house wife is missing. Technical and production values are first rate, dialogues are appropriate and costumes by Poornamrata Singh deserve special mention. Music by Siddharth and Suhas is just passable. Cinematography by Akshay Singh is sharp. Naina (Gul Panang) has her life in full throttle but just a few days before she turns 30, she is facing the wrath of her boss, gets dumped by her boyfriend (Siddharth Makkar), friends tell her about the biological clock and mom wants her to settle down. To top it all the aging also starts showing with the grays. So what happens to Naina and how does she intend to see her life through this barrier?

Alankrita Shrivastava tries to see the life and the society through the gaze of a 30-year old woman and as a debutant director it is quite ambitious project. Turning 30!!! is a chick-flick but it is not the quint-essential Bollywood kind of one, nor is it a mesh of a desi version of Bridget Jones’ Dairy and Sex and the City. But instead it does take into account the life of the cosmopolitan working woman at its crux, a theme that doesn’t find much space in the Bollywood sagas. However, the film does start with a promise, but a not so hard hitting script and writing with lame development of the characters,the film falls short of what it could have delivered. While the first half is still to a certain extent an entertaining section with the quips and the jokes, the formulaic screenplay in the second half calls the doom for the film.

Nonetheless, those who do want to wallow or kind of is in the mood while turning 30, it would be a good to watch and find a way out of it. But still 30 is a phase in life where things does get into perspective for many, as the young age is full of aspiration and the after 60 is full of regret, so the middle-age is the time to enjoy.