Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola: Movie Review

Cast: Pankaj Kapur, Imran Khan, Anushka Sharma, Shabana Azmi, Arya Babbar

Director: Vishal Bhardwaj

Genre: Comedy Drama


For the first time when I heard this name I felt it might be a movie related to our pre-independence freedom movements, and after coming out watching this movie I can very well say I found the revolution within, though not related to our pre-independence.

Vishal Bharadwaj is one such guy who constantly tries giving us something different, may it be a flick or a flop he keeps on trying. This time he delivers a political satire where the story revolves around a present day village of Haryana where industrialization is the main swing due to the growing appetite of the few upper class, forgetting the sufferings of the poor farmers for whom their land is the only source of livelihood. For the peoples who like the normal Bollywood formula movies and love stories, this one might not be very compelling or engaging but the intellectual mass would definitely take back something home. I would not say the movie is superbly made, it has its own flaws and loop holes in between, but at the end of the day most of you would walk out happily after watching this. Its a mad, mad film and a breeze of freshness among the series of brainless comedies we have seen in the recent past.

Here Matru, Bijlee and Mandola are three characters from this movie, where Matru (Imran Khan) is a village chap, Mandola (Pankaj Kapur) a business tycoon and Bijlee (Anuskha Sharma) his one and only daughter. Imran manages carrying his rustic Haryanvi look well and did justice to his role to prove that he has also got the spark to make it to the top. Anuskha as always is like the girl next door. She is good with her peppy role but I think we have seen this kind of Anuskha in lot of the movies by now and would like to see her doing something different to show her versatility. But it is Pankaj Kapoor who takes away the cream from the cake with his superb performance. He is brilliant as always and had truly out played others in this movie. he is the main driving force behind this comical political drama. Apart from the 3 title characters the others also did justice to the shoes they were in. Shabana Azmi was just perfect in delivering her wicked part and Arya Babar was also able to make himself notice. Hey wait ... how could we miss out another major character, Gulabo. I will not speak much about her but she is for sure one good reason to watch this movie.

The strength of this movie is the fresh concept, the strong performance and its presentation. The dialogues were good with a rustic village touch to it though at times it might be difficult to grasp if you don’t listen them keenly. On the negative, the story at times drags a bit and that could have been managed by ignoring few of the songs which appears suddenly without much need for them. I could not understand why there was a reason for the African tribes to be part of this movie. They seemed completely confused and unnecessary to me.

On the whole Vishal has incredibly crafted this movie and has done a job for which he needs some applause. Though it had some scope of improvement, its a must watch for those who want to experience something different and for others if you can digest some of the negativity, I could say it can very well be a one time watch for you.

Rating: 3.5 / 5