For those enamoured of the first two films in the funny-fearsome franchise, Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 is deliberately goofy and silly in some parts. The jaunty anything-goes mood is part of the Franchise’ DNA and the sooner we accept it, the better.
The Bhool Bhulaiyaa franchise is here to stay. It is silly, it is fun, it is a joyride though not for those who think cinema is a tool of social reform. What makes the third Bhool Bhulaiyaa film more relevant than the first two is the last half an hour where to everyone’s surprise, the writer Akash Kaushik has gone into the subject of crossdressing and alternate sexuality.
And it isn’t just a token concession to the spirit of inclusiveness. Nor does the gender bender serve as formulistic impetus in the plot.
Director Anees Bazmee tells me the climactic mood swing was a well thought-out plan to amplify the scope of entertainment.
“For too long I’ve been seen as an entertainer, and no harm in that. I am proud of my reputation as a laughter provider. For me to just hear audiences squealing in delight in theatres is reason enough to believe that I am on the right path. But this time we felt we needed to move further, not to be fashionably relevant but because our script this time demanded a deeper thrust,” says Anees Bazmee.
To get Kartik to play a crossdresser (albeit in a double role playing a character from a previous avatar) is no small matter. Full marks to the young actor for doing what very few A-listers of Filmistan would dare do.
Kartik has reached a stage in his career where he is thirsting for new opportunities.
The same goes for Vidya Balan who has herself a ball in the role of a woman who could be ghost and she isn’t doing anything to let the mystery around her character go to waste. Sadly, Madhuri Dixit as Vidya’s sister is completely out of sorts. Her face has lost the power to register subtle emotions. Or perhaps this was not the occasion for it.
Vidya’s best sequence in this crazily zigzaggy spooky comedy is when she cackles gleefully at a sudden tragedy and then sobers down pretending she was only imitating Madhuri.
Everyone is in this to have rollicking fun at the cost of all logic. And then there is the climax where Kartik Aaryan proves himself one of the most adventurous actors before and after Ranveer Singh.
