Tag Archives: Amala Akineni

Movie Review: Tumse Na Ho Payega (2023)

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2 Stars (out of 4)

Watch Tumse Na Ho Payega on Hulu

Do yourself a favor and only watch the first two-thirds of Tumse Na Ho Payega (“You Won’t Be Able to Do It“), when it appears to be an anti-capitalist parable about the moral, psychological, and social cost of growing a business to sate the voracious appetites of institutional investors.

Turn it off before you get to the part where, actually, turns out you just need to align yourself with a beneficent venture capital firm that will allow you to engage in “good” capitalism.

Ishwak Singh plays Gaurav, an office drone who gets fired when his boss overhears him complaining that his boring engineering job is boring. Against the advice of his mom Pooja (Amala Akkineni) and bossy neighborhood gossip Anu Aunty (Meghna Malik) — whose snobbish son Arjun (Karan Jotwani) is the youngest general manager in his financial firm’s history — Gaurav decides to start his own business.

Gaurav’s downstairs neighbor Pummy Aunty (Farida Dadi) is a great cook. Whenever he would bring a tiffin full of her dishes for lunch, his coworkers — young, single people living in Mumbai away from their parents — would go crazy for her tasty home-cooked meals. Gaurav gets the idea to recruit other aunties to make extra food to sell to office workers who are sick of takeout. Thus is born the food delivery service Maa’s Magic.

Maa’s Magic takes off with the help of Gaurav’s programmer buddy Mal (Gaurav Pandey) and his social media manager crush Devika (Mahima Makwana), who is currently dating that jerk Arjun. But being able to support themselves doing work they like isn’t enough to impress Arjun and Anu Aunty. Soon, Gaurav and Mal make a deal with an unscrupulous venture capitalist who pushes them to expand their business, even if it ruins everything good about Maa’s Magic.

At this point in the story, the movie’s message is obvious: don’t sell out for the sake of money. Being successful is about more than just money, and no amount will ever be enough to satisfy your naysayers. Making a difference in your community and being happy day-to-day is priceless.

Then Tumse Na Ho Payega throws all that feel-good stuff out the window to remind us that growth is paramount. In fact, you owe it to your customers to always grow your company. Speaking on behalf of customers, that’s a load of bunk.

The story’s disappointing twist stems from the fact that the movie is adapted from the mostly autobiographical book How I Braved Anu Aunty and Co-Founded a Million Dollar Company by Varun Agarwal. While the plot may be accurate to Agarwal’s experience, it makes for an inconsistent and ultimately disappointing narrative.

Also working against Tumse Na Ho Payega are dialogue and performances that are strictly utilitarian. There are some interesting sequences where the characters address the camera directly or in mocking voice-over conversations, but the film overall is forgettable.

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Movie Review: Karwaan (2018)

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3 Stars (out of 4)

Watch the movie on Amazon Prime
Buy the soundtrack on iTunes

The dehumanizing nature of modern office culture is ideal movie fodder. Companies tout their soul-crushing policies as necessary for the sake of “efficiency” — code for cutting labor costs to increase the profits of shareholders and executives. Karwaan (“Caravan“) beautifully puts the lie to this vision of efficiency, showing instead how interpersonal connections and generosity are often better tools for getting things done than cold bureaucracy.

Dissatisfied IT worker Avinash (Dulquer Salmaan) learns of his father Prakash’s (Akash Khurana) death via a curt phone call from a travel agent informing him where to pick up the body. The two men hadn’t spoken in years, since Prakash forced his son to abandon a promising photography career for a job offering financial stability. Avinash followed his father’s wishes but never forgave him, ground down by a boring job in an office where posters touting the employees’ replaceability are considered motivational.

The body shipped to the airport in Bangalore is not that of Avinash’s father but of a woman who died in the same bus accident. The airport’s cargo supervisor isn’t keen to track down Dad’s body, leaving it to Avinash to arrange a swap with Tahira (Amala Akkineni), the daughter of the dead woman who received Prakash’s body by mistake. Avinash hops in a van with his jaded friend Shaukat (Irrfan Khan), and they drive to Kochi to make the exchange.

The road trip gives Avinash opportunities to showcase just how much one man can accomplish with a generous spirit — and a van. Tahira calls in panic when she can’t reach her daughter at college, prompting a side trip to Ooty to pick up free-spirited Tanya (Mithila Palkar). Conservative, grumpy Shaukat almost calls off the caravan when he sees Tanya wearing a dress that hits above the knee, but Avinash prevails, giving the trio further opportunities to do good on their way to Kochi.

Tanya’s youthful exuberance affirms Avinash’s altruism but highlights the rut he’s fallen into after years demoralizing office work. He judges Tanya irresponsible for her drinking, smoking, and casual flings, only to realize how much he must sound like his own dad to someone younger.

Though Shaukat’s attitude toward Tanya and some of Avinash’s own behavior are sexist, the movie itself isn’t. Akarsh Khurana’s screenplay and direction always side with Tanya’s right to make her own choices, especially since she’s not hurting anyone else and isn’t that irresponsible in the first place. Given that Tanya’s the one who instigates a side trip to return the belongings of another bus crash victim, she’s a net positive for the world.

Irrfan Khan is typically charismatic, but he never hogs the spotlight from his co-stars. Salmaan and Palkar are at their best during their scenes together. In an industry where 50-something actors routinely romance women in their 20s onscreen, it’s refreshing that Khurana’s script precludes a romance between Avinash and Tanya because of their age difference. It allows for a greater variety of scenes than we normally get when two attractive young performers are paired together.

Karwaan isn’t an explosive film — there’s exactly one action sequence, and it’s not handled that well — but sometimes you just want a movie about nice people doing nice things. Karwaan is that movie. Enjoy it.

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