Its an out-and-out Sridevi show, and she has made a stunning comeback ! The veteran just shows why she's one of the best when it comes to acting. The myriad of expressions on her face, her composed dialogue delivery and sensitive performance, makes her too charming and cute to resist. Be it a happy, suspense, emotional or even humorous scenes, she pulls it off all with such ease, she was just mesmerizing on screen. Though her age is evident in her face and shaky voice, she's still a stunning beauty and she made it even more memorable by living the character and enabling us to connect or empathize with her ! Sridevi was sorely missed and hope people would bring her more wonderful and better scripts, to keep her acting chops, active. Welcome back, Sridevi !! She's ably assisted by just nice and fitting characters performed by Adil Hussain, Mehdi Nebbou, Priya Anand, Sulabha Deshpande, Sujata Kumar, Shivansh Kotia, Navika Kotia, Rajeev Ravindranathan, Sumeet Vyas, Ruth Aguilar, Damien Thomson, Cory Hibbs, Maria Pendolino and etc. The icing on the cake was the cool and casual guest appearance of Ajith Kumar ! He makes his presence count with an important advice and left a mark with his subtle, charming and enjoyable cameo.
Sabyasachi's designer sarees were elegant and beautiful, which further highlights the beautiness of Sridevi. The rest of the cast too had very apt and fitting costumes done by Vera Chow, Aarti Patkar and Nikita Raheja. Resul Pookutty, along with Amrit Pritam takes care of the sound designing, and their class work was evident in those minute and subtle, tingling sounds. Mustafa Stationwala's artwork was minimal and efficient. Be it the home in the Manhattan and the classroom environment, or even the wedding set for the climax, all looked natural and not over-the-top. Hemanti Sarkar's editing, was crisp and neat and his work in the beginning credits sequence was, noteworthy. Laxman Utekar's cinematography was simple, yet pretty and highlights the mood and beauty of Manhattan and New York, which were captured very well.
Amit Trivedi's music fits the mood and style of the script. All the songs were shot in montage sequences, since this is not an ordinary commercial film and also the script doesn't require any. "Dhak Dhak" was shot in a slow motion and highlights the emotional roller-coaster ride Sridevi encounters before leaving to the States. "Manhattan" as the title suggests, was shot in and around the beautiful parks and city landscape of Manhattan. "English Vinglish" captures the light-hearted moments of the English lessons taught in the centre which Sridevi attends, involving the plethora of ethnically-different based characters. "Alai Payuthey" is an emotional song, picturized on Sridevi who encounters and unwanted problem. "Ummachchi Ummachchi" is the final song, picturized against a typical Indian-American wedding ceremony with all the characters involved in the final dance and with minimal set work.
Gauri Shinde has crafted a very simple and honest script with just nicely paced screenplay and brought the best out of Sridevi. Special kudos to her, especially for this ! The film is replete with plenty of heartwarming, humorous and emotional sequences, which makes the film to have a natural and humanly feel to it. The main success of the screenplay is the entire focus on the protagonist and Gauri Shinde successfully, keeps the momentum going and did not dilute or deviate the story towards unnecessary sequences. She has etched out natural and colorful characters, given good dialogues to them, above all, made us empathize with the protagonist, for the whole duration of the film ! Hariharan should be appreciated too for his assistance in the Tamizh dialogues. The only minus point of the film, is that its a dubbed version, which means, no lip-sync and the Maharashtrian lifestyle portrayed in the film, is alien to the Tamizh natives. These small issues, may make the viewers to feel a little disconnected with the film.
Overall, 'English Vinglish' is a heartwarming, cute, beautiful and a family-friendly film, which can and will connect with every viewers who watches it. Take a bow Sridevi, take a bow !!!
Ratings: 3.5/5 STARS
BY:TAMIL
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