Homi Adajania’s debut film
Being Cyrus, released in 2006, was a dark comedy about a young painter who walks into rotten relationships and murder. Six years later, Adajania abandoned the macabre in favour of
Cocktail, a high-earning but ultimately vapid Bollywood movie about romance in Generation Y. In terms of style and content, the two films were like chalk and cheese. Adajania’s latest movie
Finding Fanny is a mixture of both: a large ensemble cast, eccentric characters, photogenic heroines, bumbling heroes, and a happy ending.
In the fictional Goan town of Pocolim lives old postman, choir-boy and all round eccentric Ferdie (Naseeruddin Shah) who, after receiving an unopened love letter he once sent to a girlfriend 46 years ago, breaks down and is unable to function. Young widow Angie (Deepika Padukone) comes
to his rescue and the two plan a road trip to visit Fanny. Their problem: the only car in town belongs to painter Don Pedro (Pankaj Kapur), who lusts after Angie’s mother-in-law Rosie (Dimple Kapadia), who hates Ferdie, and the only one who can get the car to start is Savio (Arjun Kapoor) who has the hots for Angie but is too proud to say it. You still with me?
Like in Being Cyrus, it is the supporting cast in Finding Fanny that out-charms the film’s narrator (and neutral moral arbiter) and keep this film moving. From the moment Ferdie receives the letter to when his mission comes to an end, Naseeruddin Shah is the saving grace of this film. Kapadia and Kapur are well-cast, while Kapoor and Padukone play characteristic characters.
Where the film falters is when the absurd journey made by five small-town characters turns into the usual baloney about people discovering themselves and finding meaning in their otherwise monotonous lives. Granted that’s usually what happens in movies like this where supposedly-dysfunctional characters spend a long time close to each other. But perhaps what this movie needed, in addition to humour, was a more bittersweet tone so that it wouldn’t seem sloppy when all the characters have their individual epiphanies.
To his credit, Adajania has shot his film well and has peppered it with a quasi-Mediterranean score to make it feel Goan. Its ludicrous characters and colourful tone reminds you of Amelie, another absurd film that takes weirdoes and traps them in a universe of choking coincidences. Unlike Amelie, which is a sensory overload of imagination and wackiness, Finding Fanny is too laidback and lacks conviction.
Quite a few friends said this was a film they wouldn’t go see in theatres but get a DVD to watch at home. Is it because films like this never make it to the theatres and we are so used to watching them on our laptops that we expect blockbusters at the cinema, or is it because Finding Fanny never actually goes all out? Answer: never actually goes all out.
Watch trailer: