Photograph

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra

Writer/Director: Ritesh Batra

Plot: A struggling street photographer in Mumbai, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways they could not expect.

Two lives intersect in Mumbai and go along together. A struggling street photographer, pressured to marry by his grandmother, convinces a shy stranger to pose as his fiancée. The pair develops a connection that transforms them in ways that they could not expect. From Ritesh Batra (The Lunchbox).

Photograph Movie Review Rating: 3/5 Stars (Three stars)

Star Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Sanya Malhotra, Farrukh Jaffar

Director: Ritesh Batra

What’s Good: The subtly strong performances by Sanya, Nawaz and Farrukh ma’am, the celebrated cinematography taking us to the ‘night we met’ Mumbai & the calming background score.

What’s Bad: The over-simplistic & minimalistic approach to the storyline!

Loo Break: That depends on how you take the first 15 minutes of the film, if you’re immersed in it then you’ll not need any break!

Watch or Not?: Liked The Lunchbox? Watch this to get a similar feeling in a slightly different universe.

User Rating:

It’s a love story not between just a man and a woman but also between us as an audience and the city shown in the film. A ‘monumental’ photographer (those who we meet outside the monuments) Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) clicks a very shy, introvert, in herself Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) outside Mumbai’s Gateway Of India. He’s not leading a very happy life because he’s struggling with a loan, he does not have a lot of money, his grandmother stays ill and wishes to witness his marriage.

On knowing, the grandma has stopped taking her routine medicines because of him avoiding the marriage, Rafi sends over a photograph to her. This photo is of Miloni, who is asked to play his little game of faking their relationship to the grandmother. Through all of this, they both start to accept the fakeness of their relationship after eliminating the initial silence.

Photograph Movie Review: Script Analysis

Ritesh Batra delivered a soul-satisfying meal with his previous The Lunchbox. From the one line story of this film until its trailer, it was clearly evident that Ritesh is following a similar template. As rightly quoted in Wikipedia, this movie is a love letter to the city of Mumbai. With the help of Tim Gillis and Ben Kutchins’ camera, Ritesh manages to showcase the ‘vintage’ part of Mumbai; which is missed even by the true Mumbaikars.

The simplistic and minimalistic approach that worked hugely in the favour of The Lunchbox, drags at places here. A conversation is only better if it adds some value to your narration; the writing of Photograph is weak through many sequences. Ritesh has tightly gripped the 90s by bringing in the ‘Campa Cola’ nostalgia. John F. Lyons’ could have been crispier because such movies need the ‘Before Trilogy’ level of editing.

Photograph Movie Review: Star Performance

Sanya Malhotra as Miloni/Noorie is magic on screen! The way she plays with her voice, that becomes a sub-character of her role. Photograph tops the list beating Dangal as her best performance to date.

Playing Rafi must not have been hard for Nawaz because it’s a tailor-made role for him. The character outshines his acting skills to attract natural innocence. Yet again, those subtle pauses in his dialogues are like the cherry on the cake. Farrukh Jaffar as Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s grandma is the biggest takeaway for me from the film. Her annoyingly loving character is from the same storage as Paresh Rawal’s Chachaji from Atithi Kab Jaaoge?