Dasvidaniya movie rating and review

Dasvidaniya (2008) Movie Rating and Review :

Rating :

Acting – 8/10
Direction – 7/10
Screenplay – 7/10
Music – 6/10
Technique – 6/10

Review :

Ever smiled — or laughed — with a lump in your throat? Experience it every moment of the 122 minutes that make up Dasvidaniya — The Best Goodbye Ever. Small budget and non-starry, but holding its own amid the dissonance of Bollywood, Dasvidaniya reinstates one’s faith in family, in relationships, in the goodness of life. A film that despite its heart-wrenching premise leaves a smile long after the end credits roll.

Dasvidaniya, Russian for farewell, revisits the Hrishikesh Mukherjee-Basu Chatterjee world of the common man. Amar Kaul (Vinay Pathak) leads an unspectacular life. An account manager in a firm, the unmarried 37-year-old has no social life, fights shy of women, has never touched alcohol or cigarettes and confesses that his only tryst with heroics was when he punched a classmate in class five who had eaten up his lunch! Living with his saas-bahu soap loving, hard-of-hearing mother (Sarita Joshi), Amar’s lone high point in life is drawing up a “to do” list every morning — a list that ranges from getting the geyser repaired to paying his insurance premium.

Life passes by Amar in his office cubicle year after year. Till the time he is diagnosed with cancer and is given three months to live.

Paid a “visit” by his alter ego who eggs him on to draw up a bucket list, Amar, gets a grip on himself and draws up a list of 10 things to do in the three months. From buying a new car to confessing his love for an already-married childhood sweetheart Neha (Neha Dhupia) to making that long dreamt-of trip abroad, Amar goes about ticking off the items on the list. On the way he even discovers love with a Russian call girl, realising that life is what happened to him in those three months and not in the 37 years preceding it.

Dasvidaniya may be inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru or have shades of the Morgan Freeman-Jack Nicholson starrer The Bucket List, but debutante director Shashant Shah gives the film a life of its own. It has a host of memorable scenes. Like the one in which Amar uses dumb charades to confess his feelings for Neha or the one in which he and the Russian girl have a conversation without understanding each other’s language or when the two dance to the Dev Anand classic Pal bhar ke liye.

Dasvidaniya leaves an impact largely on account of its powerhouse performances. Co-producer Vinay Pathak brings the earnestness of Bheja Fry’s Bharat Bhushan, but tempers it with a subtlety and pathos that tugs at one’s heartstrings. He and Sarita Joshi act out one of the sweetest ma-beta relationships on the Hindi screen in a long time. Every other member of the cast — Rajat Kapoor as the best friend, Gaurav Gera as the younger brother, Joy Augustine as the music teacher and Saurabh Shukla as the evil, perpetually-stuffing-his-face boss — can take a bow. Kailash, Paresh and Naresh’s music complement the simplicity of the film, with Alvida and Ma being the top picks.

A film like Dasvidaniya comes by once in a while. In between the sexy bods of Dostana and the dishy Bond of Quantum of Solace, keep your date with Dasvidaniya.

People who read this post also read :