Alfred Hitchcock once said ‘To make a great film you need three things – the script, the script and the script.’ ‘Do Dooni Chaar’ drives this point straight home, demonstrating that one doesn’t need a fancy superstar or a monstrous budget to make a good film. Garnished with moments that seem straight out of real life and played out earnestly, writer-director Habib Faisal seems to have found his recipe for success.
Santosh Duggal (Rishi Kapoor) is a simple schoolteacher, who like most teachers in our country is underpaid, undervalued and over worked. Even after putting in twenty years of sincere service, the math’s teacher, who rides a rickety old scooter, struggles to make ends meet. His good-humored better half, Kusum (Neetu Singh), is a typical middle-class Delhi housewife, who capably runs the house on a shoestring budget. Living off Duggal’s frail income are a teenage tomboy daughter Payal (Aditi Vasudev) and a son Sandy (Archit Krishna), who through a secret betting habit, lives beyond his means.
Like most middle class families that are lured into higher aspirations via slick advertizing, the Duggal’s too find themselves running the race for consumer goods. It all begins when the family is forced to arrange a car to attend a family wedding. The hilarious events that follow, cement the fact that to have respect in society, Mr.Duggal has to buy his own car.
The usual--advance salary, down payment–EMI route to buy his car fails as he learns that a poor schoolteacher is not a good candidate for a bank loan. Desperate to win his families (and his neighbors’) respect, will Duggal take an unethical & immoral route to fulfill his family’s aspirations?
Debutant director Habib Faisal deftly portrays the life of a middle class family and its challenges. Although the film is a comedy, there is a strong undercurrent of emotions that help you sympathize with its endearing characters. The scene where the Duggals buy several cartons of washing powder to win a lucky draw with a new car as its first prize is particularly well executed. Banking on Duggal’s ‘theory of probability’, the four eager hopefuls spend the entire night cutting open packets, but win zilch! The scene is both funny and heartbreaking and brilliantly exposes a futile consumer culture.
Rishi Kapoor delivers a stellar performance as Santosh Duggal. He sinks his teeth deep into the soul of the character and doesn’t let go till the very end. With superb body language and an amusing Punjabi accent, Kapoor is extremely believable as the devoted family man. The scene where he discovers his sons gambling habit and instead of berating him, uses a clever and loving approach to teach his son a lesson, is sure to bring a tear to the eye.
Incredibly, the twenty-odd year gap in her career has left no rust on Neetu Singh’s talent. She switches from being brittle and tender to being tough and protective, and wonderfully holds her family together. She sulks to get what she wants and when she gets it, a mischievous smile emerges on her face.
Rishi Kapoor and Neetu Singh light up the cinema screen like dynamite, playing extremely grounded characters. Archit Krishna as Sandy is excellent as is Akhilendra Mishra who plays the neighbor Mr. Farookhi who grudgingly lends the Duggals his beloved car.
In fact, the film is a lesson in good casting as it delivers great performances from the entire (relatively unknown) supporting cast. Also worth mention is the realistic production design that takes us into a lower middle class world which some of us left behind years ago, and some of us aspire to get out of today.
Pre-Climax though, the script reveals its weak spot. Right in the middle of facing his moral dilemma, Duggal chances upon a doting ex student, who reminds him of how he always stood for good values, helping make up Duggals mind; a little sudden & manipulative for a sincere & organic script.
Also, this film deserved a tighter pace, especially in its second half and also had scope for better music, like its Delhi middle-class predecessor ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’. Yet, the cast & crew manage to hold together this unusual cinematic enterprise. The end result is an effective, yet understated comment on the strength of a united family, surviving in a competitive consumer-driven world.
‘Do Dooni Chaar’ is a highly recommended family outing.
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