Arjun Kapoor, Parineeti Chopra, Jaideep Ahlawat, Raghubir Yadav, Neena Gupta and others.
Dibakar Banerjee
2021-06-05
Hindi
3/5
The roads of Delhi are often called unsafe. Thus a random speeding SUV, a crude gesture is almost the accepted norm. Till you find the vehicle that just sped past your cab is crudely shot at by the none other than the police themselves masterminded by their head Tyagi (Jaideep Ahlawat). This is why the passenger Sandeep (Parineeti Chopra) and the driver of the cab, Pinky (Arjun Kapoor) have to get faraar (escape) far from Delhi to begin with.
The one-off incident has many precursors though. Sandeep Kaur is not your regular banker. This girl is responsible for making some major finance decisions across the nation, some very inspiring work in her field, where she juggles financial crisis at the very top level. Also, she is pregnant and at odds with her boss who is the father of her baby. The cab driver, Pinky on the other hand, is a suspended officer who is the exact opposite of success. Nothing he has done is ever amounted to much. In fact, his boss, Tyagi feels his death will be as inconsequential as he, himself. One of the dialogues wherein Pinky confronts Tyagi, he says, “If I manage to escape you will be the ‘Pinky’ of the fraternity!”
Yet together, Pinky and Sandeep are brawn and brain – a combination that should usually spell success. For the duo success means managing to cross the border over the Nepal to start anew. However, the road is perilous to begin. Thankfully their journey is flanked by some good Samaritans like Aunty (Neena Gupta) and Munna (Rahul Kumar). However more often than not, tying everything in a neat knot often leads to more tangles.
Do Sandeep and Pink manage to escape? Why is it that the two were targeted to begin with… what happens to Sandeep’s baby and more… amount to a rather linear script by Varun Grover and Dibaker Banerjee. A lot of the story-telling is predictable but not contrived. The surprises (or shocks) are rather dark and dragged in parts but the film is certainly one of the better ones on the platform. The chemistry between the lead pair takes us to the fond memories of Ishaqzaade which makes Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar a bit of a disappointed. As comfortable as Parineeti Chopra looked playing Zoya, she is not as at ease with Sandeep Kaur. The straight face, intellectual doesn’t sit with her usual style. True to himself, Arjun Kapoor sticks to one expression, even in the song, which in itself is an accomplishment. However, the script prompts a little more heart than the leads have put in the film. Especially when there are actors like Neena Gupta and Raghubir Yadav, any dip in graph ironically stands out like a sore-thumb. The other downers are the cliches in the film, like how the woman stick together, despite not really sticking physically. But the highlight of the film is definitely the one thing the film quietly, screams from the title itself. We live in a patriarchal society and you need to be a man named Pinky to be comfortable taking orders from a woman. If you are not a Pinky, you will somehow try to exert your will on a woman, even if you are a small time, cowardly manager in a tiny town called Pithoragarh. Dibarker Banerjee never really falls prey to the need for a fairytale ending, but this one almost does it. With nice lulling background score by the director himself. The film is picturesque (all credit to Anil Mehta, the cinematographer), the calming mountains, the drowsy towns makes the trauma of the leads more jarring yet if you really want to know what jarring stands for, you have to see Arjun Kapoor dressed as a woman! All said, enjoy Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar, for this is one of the best from YRF’s recent lot.
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