Delhi In A Day Review In BriefA UK citizen comes to India to discover the 'real India' and gets more than he bargained for…
Delhi In A Day Review Verdict
Though the performances are impressive and the film has doses of humour, the overall fare is quite dismal.
Delhi In A Day Review Story Plot
Jasper (Lee Williams) is a UK citizen who comes to Delhi to visit his father's classmate and business associate Mukund Bhatia (Kulbhushan Kharbanda) for a day before leaving for Varanasi to discover the 'real India'. While at the sprawling Delhi bungalow, Jasper gets drawn to maid Rohini (Anjali Patil), who stays with other servants and helps serve the household even as he tried to escape the overbearing Kalpana (Lillete Dubey), who seems hell bent on pampering and mollycoddling Jasper.
Things get complicated when Jasper discovers that his entire savings, which he carried in an envelope, has disappeared and this discovery unleashes a flurry of activity in the Bhatia household as an embarrassed Mukund and Kalpana get determined to retrieve the money at any cost to save face. Needless to say, the servants of the household are the prime suspects of the theft and how this leads to tensions within the house forms the rest of the plot.
Delhi In A Day Review Performances
Actors Kulbhushan Kharbanda and Lillette Dubey are veterans of their game and this is seen from the first scene onwards. Kharbanda as the jovial South Delhi patriarch who enjoys his whiskey and tikkas and Dubey as the boisterous and sharp tongued Kalpana are an absolute delight to watch. Lee Williams as Jasper and Victor Banerjee as the grandfather of the Bhatia household are decent enough too whereas the rest of the cast, comprising Anjali Patil, Vidya Bhushan, Dinesh Yadav and Arun Mallick as the servants of the household are quite sincere in their roles.
Delhi In A Day Review Direction
Though this reviewer was quite impressed with the performances, the film failed to leave a mark as far as direction is concerned. Though the initial half hour seems interesting enough, the plot tends to drag as much as possible and one might end up wishing the director could get to the point already! Moreover, the director seems confused at times about whether he wants to talk about a foreigner's perspective of India or the social and economic inequality as shown in the interactions between the Bhatia family household and their hired help. Last but not the least; though the title of the film mentions Delhi, there is not much of Delhi in the story…the plot could have as well taken place in Mumbai or Goa or any other place in India.
Delhi In A Day Review Final Word
If you are ready to watch a film just for the performances regardless of everything else, do go watch this flick…otherwise, giving it a miss would be the wise thing to do.
Delhi In A Day (2012) Movie Information
Color: C
Release Date: 24-08-2012
Language: Hindi
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Banner
Nomad Productions
PVR Cinemas
Director
Prashant Nair
Cast
Victor Banerjee
Lee Williams
Lillete Dubey
Kulbhushan Kharbanda
Anjali Patil
Dinesh Yadav
Vidya Bhushan
Arun Mallick Kumar
Producer
Prashant Nair
B Chintu Mohapatra
Music Director
Mathias Duplessy
Screenplay Writer
Prashant Nair
Editor
Bhuvan Srinivasan
Sylvie Landra
Synopsis
Having risen from relative obscurity to obscene wealth through a series of nefarious import/export deals, the Bhatia family reside in a palatial mansion in South Delhi. Mukund (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), jovial patriarch of the family, struggles to balance the demands of a successful career with the continually expanding needs of his pampered family. Kalpana (Lillete Dubey), his boisterous and sharp-tongued wife of 30 odd years, commands an over-staffed and disorderly team of servants, comprised of: Rohini (Anjali Patil), a nineteen year old girl who dreams of stardom in Mumbai; Udai-Singh (Dinesh Yadav), the semi-alcoholic cook eager to prove his talents in world cuisine; Chottu (Arun Mallick), an over-excitable and effeminate butler of sorts; Venkat and Nataraj, two meek South Indian drivers who are overwhelmed by life in Delhi; and Raghu (Vidya Bhushan), who has practically helped raise Jai and Madhu, Kalpana's teenage kids, over the last two decades.
When Jasper (Lee Williams), the idealistic son of an important British business associate, arrives in Delhi to begin a tour of India he is quickly overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of the city as well as the contradictions and nuances of the colorful manner in which his hosts, the Bhatias, conduct their lives. As he is drawn into household dynamics, he slowly begins to find his presence has upset the natural order of things and that his first day in Delhi might just prove to be more than he bargained for.
"Delhi In A Day" is a comedic portrayal of upper-class Delhi society, examining class differences in the context of a nouveau-riche, contemporary Delhi family home.
