Gulabo Sitabo Review: A Moderately Entertaining Satirical Comedy!

Narrating a unique story between two extremely offbeat characters, Gulabo Sitabo, directed by Shoojit Sircar, is one of the very first films to debut directly to digital during this on-going pandemic era. Starring two dominant names from Bollywood in Amitabh Bachchan and Ayushmann Khurrana, the expectations for this film are high, acknowledging the fact that Sircar and Khurrana have a pretty good individual track record in the recent past. However, despite having a decent ensemble of the cast at its disposal, does Gulabo Sitabo suffer from multiple narrative hiccups? Let’s find out! Gulabo Sitabo Review Gulabo Sitabo Amazon Prime

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Set in present-day Lucknow, the story of Gulabo Sitabo centers around a greedy, stubborn, and often-complaining guardian of a mansion, Mishra, who often lurks around the area bartering his palace’s antique furniture and several utilizable goods. As he waits every day for his wife’s imminent death, intending to take over the mansion, he encounters a wide variety of complications from the tenants to a few government officials who oppose Mishra’s notions to become the sole owner of the property. The remainder of the film showcases if or how Mishra tries to incorporate his silly tactics to fulfill his avarice.

Similar to her previous work in the 2015 comedy-drama, Piku, writer Juhi Chaturvedi builds her entire narrative around the mansion—which serves as the MacGuffin for the film. And to give credit, where credit is due, she made a total effort to tell a distinguished story which is far from anything traditional and conventional. Furthermore, satirical humor may or may not work at the same time, and in the case of Gulabo Sitabo, the comedy is often mediocre and only managed to make me laugh a handful of times.

However, Gulabo Sitabo disappoints with the in-between stuff but had no dilemma setting up and concluding the narrative. Clocking just above two hours, the runtime diminished the film’s quality with a myriad of needless scenes that had no connection to the on-going narrative nor help elevate the involved characters. And this is the primary drawback with which the film suffers through and through, the slow pacing, cause it is mundane to watch, and I regularly checked the remainder of the runtime, especially in the last one hour.

Nevertheless, looking at the positives, the characters, however, are very well established and exceptionally written to entertain from beginning till the end. Starting with Amitabh Bachchan who essays a role which is very physically challenging from the prosthetics on his face to his hunch down walking style and the mumbling voice that perfectly fits his demeanor. His character is also intriguing in the most awkward way as you can’t help but laugh at his swinish nature and the ability to treat people with very little respect.

Ayushmann Khurrana, on the other hand, plays an unplanned and very uninformed wheat mill owner, who, despite sharing a few parallels with Amitabh Bachchan’s character manages to pick fights with him on a day-to-day basis. Khurrana impresses yet again with his simple medium belly look and complements his counterpart incredibly well. The remainder of the supporting characters – Vijay Raaz, Brijendra Kala, Farrukh Jafar, and Srishti Shrivastava supplement the entertainment side of things superbly and never bored me out with their performances.

With the entire movie taking place in the heart of Lucknow, the production design is something where the movie excelled at. The old, dilapidated and the antiquated look of Fatima Mahal (mansion) suited adequately with the conventional notions of the characters and established the vibe perfectly. Shantanu Moitra’s background score involving only a small assortment of instruments added the much-needed feel alongside Avik Mukhopadhyay’s spectacular camera-work, which captured the medieval-looking streets of the city magnificently.

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Overall, it would have been interesting to see Gulabo Sitabo‘s run at the box-office if it had a normal theatrical release, cause this is not an easy film to sit through. The diverse characters and the stellar performances from the cast alongside a few technical aspects were the only gleaming positives I could think of from start to finish. The sluggish pace and the shilly-shally narrative style did not work for the most part nor the satirical comedy. With a stalwart pair leading the charge accompanied by a solid director, I expected so much more from this film rather than a moderately entertaining dramedy. Watch ‘Gulabo Sitabo’ on Amazon Prime here.

Rating – 2.5/5 | Grade – C+

Images via Amazon Prime Video

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