Jayeshbhai Jordaar Review: Ranveer Singh sends out important social messages with humour. Can you take him seriously?
Jayeshbhai Jordaar Movie Review: Jayeshbhai Patel expects to accomplish so much in a two-hour film. He wants to send out a social message on equality, spread awareness about pre-natal sex determination and convince the Indian patriarchal system that it is absolutely normal to have a girl child. But he's not audacious enough, at least in the beginning. His most daring step is to run away with his pregnant wife who is bearing a girl child.
Born in the small town of Gujarat in a reputed family, Ranveer's Jayeshbhai is a misfit in the family. His father, Ramlal Patel, played by Boman Irani is the patriarch with influence and dominance. The village listens to him, his family obeys him and his son nods to every absurdity he utters. Jayeshbhai's mother, Anuradha Patel, on the other hand, is the one who looks after the household and just like her husband she wishes to have a grandson who could continue their family line. Ratna Pathak Shah, as usual, fits in here perfectly.
Debutant writer-director Divyang Thakkar has attempted to make the audience feel that film is chirpy and at the same time nuanced. He uses bright Gujarati wears for his actors, and uses an ample amount of light even in night sequences. Dialogues with sharp humour are handy to mock the gibberish claims of orthodox patriarchs. For instance, Ramlal Patel telling his men to ban soaps in the village because boys make crass comments outside the village school will relay real-life speeches in your head.
Even as it is established that the film is about women's rights and equality, the exuberant feminism falls flat when a man is trying to speak about issues concerning women. It makes one feel pity and question so many things when Jayesh has to explain to his wife Mudra Patel (Shalini Pandey) that he's responsible for the baby's gender. Nevertheless, you're equally pleased when their daughter (the most pragmatic character in the film) doesn't hustle to give his father a reality check on multiple occasions. She's the one who should be credited for Jayesh Patel's transformation to Jayeshabhi Jordaar.
The film does well in setting up the base for confrontation. The brimming tension of the toing and froing sees release at climactic moments but you are prepared for what may happen next. Ranveer does his job finely but the filmmaker has hardly kept any card close to the chest. You know how this is going to end even before it does. The dismantling of the chaos and the confusion is too obvious to keep you excited till the end. Music syncs well with the film, but there isn't any song that you'd want to play on loop.
Jayeshbhai Jordaar is invested in justifying the themes but touches upon them with so much preaching that it dilutes its essence. Something that racks the film is the hammering down of the information that may bore you. The mood and tone of the film are at times "too" humours that you cannot figure out if it's something you take seriously or laugh about and forget.