Rai, in contrast, is quite impassive, exacerbating the film’s mediocrity. Rao is excellent here, channelising his character’s innocence to hilarious results. The film comes alive in a short comedic segment, where Baby is kidnapped by Prashant and Adheer (Rao), two friends with no history of, or interest in, violence. In the absence of insight about its characters, Fanney Khan resembles a narrative, and not a story. In fact, there’s just one scene in the movie, between Rao and Rai, where they open up about their histories and vulnerabilities, helping us understand them, and their actions, in some depth. We know what they want, but we never get a fair sense of who they are. The characters of Fanney Khan are broadly sketched figures. But his decision to kidnap a famous star, Baby Singh (Bachchan), is so out of sync with his character that it feels unconvincing, hurting the film’s credibility, a major flaw in a story that aims to be rooted and real. Her father, on the other hand, is a straight-laced blue collared worker who starts driving a taxi after the factory shut down. This is a pattern that is repeated throughout the film – whether she’s performing locally or in a talent show – casting her as a victim who is defined less by her singing and more by her bodily inadequacy. Whenever she comes on stage to sing and perform, the audiences hurl body-shaming insults at her. Lata, for instance, is saddled with a ‘problem’: people make fun of her because of her weight.
The challenges, joys and heartbreak of life isn’t enough for this movie, so it plants situations and subplots to inject pathos – contrived efforts that prevent the film from reaching its audience. But like many mainstream Hindi films juggling the nuances of real life and the tropes of a melodrama, Fanney Khan keeps interrupting its own story. But in a chawl like his, where day-to-day living can be a challenge, wanting to become a singer – or to want anything at all – seems brave.įanney Khan, starring Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, could have been a simple heartfelt story about the power of dreams. Like many parents living their dreams through their children, Prashant wants Lata to be a singer. He was an orchestra player in the 1990s, but then life happened: job, marriage and a daughter called Lata. Prashant Sharma (Anil Kapoor), a factory worker, deals with metal all day long, but his real passion is music.
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