Movie Review: Anubhav

Anubhav – A not so pleasant experience, Rating: 1.5 out of 5*, Starring: Sanjay Suri, Gul Panag, Jackie Shroff, Mita Vasisht, Shruti Seth, Raj Zutshi, Sudha Chandran and Anoop Menon, Director: Rajiv Nath

Anubhav (Sanjay Suri), Antara (Shruthi Seth) and Aadi (Anoop Menon) are products of the Bombay theatre academy who nurture big Bollywood dreams. But reality soon dawns upon them that those dreams are not to easy to fulfill. Anubhav during his struggling mission encounters Meera (Gul Panag) who excitedly declares that she is his fan. The twosome fall in love and get married much to Meera’s rich parents’ wishes. The theatre guru Ibrahim Vakil (Jackie Shroff) now becomes their sole patron. Meanwhile Aadi manages to get a producer for his film which is supposed to be an adaptation of famous Shakespearean play, Hamlet. The film starring Anubhav in the main lead gets stuck midway owing to an untimely demise of their producer. At the same time Meera runs into some pregnancy complications which in turn lead to an extra ordinary turn of fortunes for Anubhav. All these problems drive Anubhav to become a gigolo who trades his body to sex hungry woman in return of money. But as he solicits his clients, he imagines them to be characters in a movie till he gets to a point when he cannot differentiate whether he is a gigolo, an actor or an ordinary man.

The basic premise of the film is really interesting since its topical and such things do happen in present times in Bollywood. But once the situations are established and Anubhav turns a male prostitute, the film losses its way. You also stop caring much about the characters and simply can’t relate to them. Then there is this melodramatic angle forcibly thrown in about Anubhav’s new born daughter’s illness and how Gul Panag thinking their daughter is dead. Also what were the makers thinking when giving those lines for Sanjay Suri to mouth when he is narrating his sex worker experiences? Simply cringe worthy. Agreed the film may be inspired from real life sequences but why be so direct?

While direction is so-so by Rajiv Nath, the other departments also hardly impress. Aadesh Srivastava’s music is plain ordinary. Amongst the actors only Gul Panag delivers while Sanjay Suri with his limited set of expressions just doesn’t. Jackie is simply wasted whereas Shruti Seth, Raj Zutshi and Sudha Chandran hardly have meat in their roles. Anoop Menon is fair.

Having suffered this Anubhav (experience) we would like to tell you that it is not really a pleasant experience to under go. Watch at your own risk.