Unreal Estate:
So, Covid19 makes its appearance in a full-length OTT feature film, 36 Farmhouse (on Zee5), written and produced by Subhash Ghai, and directed by Ram Ramesh Sharma, a product of his Whistling Woods cinema school.
Since Ghai’s production house is a late entrant into the OTT space, his ‘Mukta story lab’ had enough time to observe what others are doing for streaming platforms, and what is working with the audience. Why come up with a comedy-cum-crime drama that is outdated in every way—from concept to execution?
The farmhouse in question – studded with kitschy statuary– belongs to Lady (Lady? Which century is this?) Padmini Rajsingh (Madhuri Bhatia), who has decided to bequeath the property to her good-for-nothing eldest son Raunak (Vijay Raaz). Her other two sons are unhappy about this, what the daughter thinks, nobody bothers about.
The period is the Lockdown of 2020, which saw an exodus of migrant works back to their hometowns. (The nod to the real-life pandemic just means masks are occasionally worn by the actors, but mostly they get away saying they have been tested.) Among them is Jaiprakash (Sanjay Mishra), a dhaba cook, who lands a job at the farmhouse, by pretending to be a bachelor, and plans to steal valuables from the mansion. It so happens that his son Hari (Amol Parashar), a tailor, also lands up there with the granddaughter Antra (Barkha Singh), who is a fashion designer. They have to pretend they don’t know each other, because both have hidden their real identities.
At the start of the film, a lawyer who came to meet Raunak to tell him that his brothers have demanded a new will in which they all get an equal share, is killed and thrown into a well. The cops take their time to appear on the scene, and their investigations are mostly kept off screen. What goes in the name of comedy is Jaiprakash flirting with the maid Benny (an over made-up Ashwini Kalsekar), and overhearing inconvenient bits of conversation which people conduct with doors wide open.
Meanwhile the air-headed Antra, makes eyes at Hari, as Raunak seethes. The old lady wears her diamonds and plays the piano, blissfully unaware of what is going on around her.
The actors do the best they can with the material at hand, but there is not really much to go with. Quite often, the eye strays to some gaudy knick-knack or painting in the background, because the proceedings are so dull.
The film, shot mostly on one location, definitely needed a lot more tension, and some genuine humour; a couple of good songs would not have hurt (Ghai is credited with music too, and makes his usual ‘Hitchcockian’ walk-on appearance). If the audience’s attention is to be captured when there is so much steaming content available, then such a major production company should aim much higher, and, ideally set trends for others to follow.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in on January 22, 2022)
