Gulabo Sitabo, pitched as “Amazon presents a Prime Video release”, does a fair job of capturing the ups and downs of the tussle between the men, whose cards are all laid out on the table and there is hence no ambiguity about what they are up to. But neither of the two – nor, of course, the audience – knows how it will all turn out for them and the building they live in. And that keeps the intrigue level high in Shoojit Sircar’s new comedic drama.
The two principal characters of the delightfully askew Gulabo Sitabo are always at loggerheads, but the trait that they share – a selfish love for the crumbling Fatima Mahal, a mansion going to seed rather rapidly – constitutes the spine of the story.
The spare, unshowy treatment of the central conflict, which, as the film progresses, creates room for two other key players with their won sets of vested interests, might appear to be at variance with the comedic spirit of the plot.
With the actors giving the film their all – Amitabh Bachchan’s wizened, hunchbacked, curmudgeonly act is the main propellant – Gulabo Sitabo works even when not much seems to be happening on the screen or the characters are beating about the bush.
The best thing about Gulabo Sitabo, scripted by Juhi Chaturvedi, is that it isn’t trying to be a scream. The humour springs from the language and the manner of its delivery. It won’t have you rolling on the floor. But it will elicit mild chuckles every time Mirza (Bachchan) and Baankey Rastogi (Ayushmann Khurrana) have a go at each other over petty matters that slowly snowball out of control.
Mirza and Baankey won’t cede an inch to each other, but fate has a way of asserting itself. In Mirza’s case, it is represented by his Begum (Farrukh Jafar), who is a decade-and-a-half older than him but is no pushover. For Baankey, who owns an atta chakki in town, destiny takes the form of a few bricks in a wall that give way when he directs a kick at it in the exasperation triggered by a fellow tenant who takes longer than usual in the toilet.
