Barfi - Movie Review

Barfi is magical; it’s like watching a fairytale unfold in front of you. Language isn’t a constraint, everyone in this world understands joy, hope, sorrow love. Barfi starts like every other film with a flashback with the heroine Shruti (Ileana D'cruz) who makes a dignified debut in Hindi cinema tells about Barfi played by Ranbir Kapoor.

 

Ileana goes to Darjeeling for a vacation and it his love at first sight with Ranbir Kapoor who can’t speak or hear. Ranbir named after Murphy radio is called as Barfi lives with his father is smitten by the beauty of Ileana and the romantic scenes between the lead pair is poetic. Shot beautifully by Ravi Varman, the first hour of the movie is terrific.

 

Ileana rejects Barfi (Ranbir) marries a person choosen by her parents. We are parallely introduced to Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra) an autistic who is a childhood friend of Barfi she doesn’t have understanding parents. Barfi is constantly in the hunt by a policeman (Saurabh Shukla) for petty theft and later for kidnapping Jhilmil. The scenes between Ranbir Saurabh Shukla (lifted from Chaplin Classics) bring the roof down with excellent timing & background score. Barfi kidnaps the wealthy Jhilmil to treat his ailing father. What happens after that is told in a beautiful fairytale manner which leaves you speechless.

 

The scene where Jhilmil shouts Barfi, Barfi, Barfi…. and he couldn’t hear her voice, but Ileana hears it tells Barfi that Jhilmil is here behind you is one of the finest scenes made in Indian cinema. Ileana’s expressions and reactions in this scene are magnificent.

 

Technically, Barfi is top notch with excellent background score by Pritam editing by Akiv Ali. Anurag Basu a cancer survivor has given the best movie in his career. Ranbir Kapoor is at his supreme best in comedy and has handled the emotional scenes wonderfully. Keep your racks free Ranbir, awards will pour in, Priyanka Chopra as an autistic Jhilmil portrays the character brilliantly though sometimes she goes overboard. The length of the dramatic second half could have been reduced.

 

Barfi tells us one simple thing: Differently abled people have abundance happiness in them and they celebrate this life given by god which is very much missing in ourselves.