Bala: A light-hearted comedy that strikes a chord

Bala: Ayushmann adds to his legacy

There is no doubt who the fastest growing actor in Bollywood is right now. Ayushmann Khurrana has given 6 hits in a row and has been praised from all quarters for his out of the box choices, varied acting choices and interesting scripts.

With Bala, Ayushmann adds another chapter to his ever-increasing legacy. He plays the role of a middle-aged man, insecure about his early balding, with ridiculous ease and extreme flair. He gets the audience invested in his character from the get-go and has them supporting him throughout. He brings a layer of vulnerability to his character, which resonates deeply with the audience.

He is ably supported by Bhumi Pednekar and Yami Gautam. Bhumi, plays a dark-skinned , marginalised lawyer with immense spunk and adds much needed fuel to the film. In many ways she is the glue of the film and is instrumental in the transformation of Ayushmann. She understands the importance of her role and rises to the challenge effortlessly. Yami Gautam plays a social media sensation, who falls in love with Ayushmann. While she plays her part well, the part as a whole is slightly underwritten and therefore doesn’t allow her to portray her full range of acting skills.

The plotline of the film is not complex. It is a film where you get what you are advertised, a light-hearted, funny entertainer, with a key message. The writers understand this and have not gone out of their way to make this film something it is not. The dialogues are very simple and direct, not requiring the audience to use too much of their brains. However, there is a hint of laziness to the writing as some of the jokes and techniques used get repetitive towards the latter half of the movie.

While a lot of the film is enjoyable, there are certain issues. Firstly, at certain times it did feel as though the film was dragging and therefore it could have been possible for the run time to be reduced and the movie made sharper. Secondly, the main message of the movie, which was the need to get over one’s insecurities and love yourself however you are, could have been put across in a subtler manner, as director Amar Kaushik had managed in his previous project, Stree. Lastly, I had an issue with the over-colouring of Bhumi Pednekar's face. While I completely understand that every director has the freedom to cast whoever they want, the colouring of the face in the way that it was done was more distracting than helpful and made it seem like the message was being forced upon the reader at times.

In conclusion, director Amar Kaushik delivers a successful film that provides the audience with a good time. It puts across a message but doesn’t take itself too seriously and therefore allows the audience to enjoy it. It is quite rare for two incredibly similar movies to release on the same day, but the fact that Bala clashed with Ujda Chaman and came out the winner (certainly in terms of Box Office numbers), shows that the makers of this movie have done a lot of things right.

- Ahaan Gupta