Chhodo Kal Ki Baatein addresses the very relevant issue of work life balance, something that most of us strive for but very few manage. Unfortunately, the film chooses to clobber us with the message leaving us feeling very imbalanced indeed.
Sachin Khedekar plays the super busy executive who misses his daughters Arangetram because he has to attend a Board meeting. Miffed, his wife and daughter go away to spend the weekend at her parents place. Our man then gets into some kind of time warp where everyday is a Sunday and the same things keep happening as if for the first time. He also sees a sort of deranged blind man (Anupam Kher whose penchant for hamming is kind of curbed by the Directors clever idea of making him wear glares so that he cant make those demented expressions) who claps his hands in (supposed) childlike glee when he is pleased. This man becomes his guru who teaches him to enjoy the small things in life like dehusking coconuts, flying kites and painting pictures.
The concept of a day repeating itself has been done before very successfully. Here, the device just grates, jars and bores because it is stretched till the interval. It needed just a couple of scenes to make us understand this point but no, we are subjected to the same loony characters (kaamwali bai, dhobi, pesky neighbor, etc) over and over again till the interval like some idiotic school play. The story movies ahead only post interval by which time you are fed up and want to go home.
Sachin Khedekar is a good actor and he does his job very well here. The rest of the cast is also made up of old hands from Marathi and Hindi films and are competent. Anupam Kher is Anupam Kher.
This movie did not need an interval. It could have been a sweet small movie with a moral well told. But they need two songs and an item number I guess to justify the 250 bucks I spent watching it.
Share