Review: Khichdi – The Movie is a laugh riot

Film: Khichdi – The Movie (U/A)
Director: Aatish Kapadia
Cast: Supriya Pathak, Anang Desai, Rajeev Mehta, Jamnadas Majethia, Nimisha Vakharia, Kirti Kulhari and others
Rating: ***½

Just as the television sitcom Khichdi tickled your funny bone every week, so, too, does the silver-screen version chronicling the hilarious saga of the whacky bunch that is the Parekh family.

The idiotic wisecracks of the harebrained Praful gadhe (Mehta) coupled with the even more inane musings of his wife Hansa (Pathak), the shrewd ideas of Jayashree (Vakharia), the anguished grunts and groans of Babuji (Desai), and the naivete of Himanshu (Majethia) are so endearing and entertaining that you break into bouts of laughter throughout the film.

Though the film does not boast of a strong storyline, it does not fail to amuse you at any point. The plot is loosely structured around the madcap family’s resolve to fulfil Himanshu’s greatest desire, which is to get married to the woman of his dreams in an over-dramatic manner so that his love story goes down in history as an exemplary one.

Side-splitting dialogues, animated performances, and hilarious episodes leverage the film to an out-and-out entertainer that grabs your attention and retains it, too. Most of the cast, being veterans in the domain of acting, simply bowl you over with their performances.

But there is a sore point. Vandana Pathak, who played Jayashree’s role in the sitcom, is conspicuous by her absence, and Nimisha Vakharia, who replaces her, fails to measure up to the mark. Comedy king Satish Shah in a guest appearance as god makes you want more of him in the film.

The two central families belong to the Gujarati and Punjabi cultures which are depicted uproariously in the film. Himanshu’s ‘m for dosa (masala dosa, that is)’, and the Punjabi family which has all 65 members named Parminder (so that you don’t have trouble recalling 65 names!) sound atrocious, yet you can’t help but chuckle when you watch these scenes on the screen.

At some points, you do feel that some sequences are over the top, but that does not harm the purpose of the film, which is to make you crack up.