January 14, 2011 (Sampurn Wire): Film: Turning 30!!!

Cast: Gul Panag, Rurab Kohli, Siddharth Makkar, Tillotama Shome

Director: Alankrita Shrivastava

Rating: **

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 doesnt 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.

--Sampurn Wire