A Plot is Lost

CAST: Anupam Kher,Tena Desai,Pawan Malhotra,Rushad Rana

rating: **1/2

A bubbly young girl returns home after a gap to a father who’s been her idol growing up. But it’s not all fun and games. She’s drawn slowly but steadily into a complex web of past sins and current transgressions: was her mother’s end as straightforward as she had always been led to believe?

Yeh Faasley has an intriguing premise. The connection between a father and a motherless daughter is usually made stronger because there is just the two of them,and that’s what it seems when Devinder Devilal Dua (Kher) is first shown rapping companionably with daughter Arunima (Desai). They come across as friends who can share stuff: he makes fun of her growing fondness for her best friend’s brother (Rana),she pokes a finger into his expanding middle,exclaiming over the clothes he can’t fit into anymore. An encounter with Digvijay aka Diggy (Malhotra),a resident ex-royal who has thrown open his mahal to tourists,opens a door to her mother’s troubled past. Who is right,her father whom she’s adored unconditionally,or this new man,who was her mother’s friend when this bunch — her father,mother,and good pal Diggy — were all young?

The film begins promisingly,setting up little mysteries. But too soon,the plot starts developing holes,and the execution turns lax. Not even the interesting cast can save this from sinking: debutant Desai is a game trier and comes across all right in some patches,but is made to switch from anxiety to high-pitched hysteria too often. Rana is a good actor in search of a credible part,which is not what the script offers him. The seasoned Kher tries holding it all together but is forced into too many scenes,and even the talented Malhotra’s turn,which I was really looking forward to,given that he does such little screen these days,is a waste.