TURNING 30 MOVIE REVIEW

Cast & Crew :Purab Kohli ,Gul Panag ,Siddharth Makkar ,Tillotama Shome ,Jeneva Talwar ,Anita Kanwar ,Rahul Singh ,Sameer Malhotra ,Ira Dubey ,Bikramjeet Kanwarpal
Music : Siddharth, Suhas
Cinematography: Akshay Singh
Editing : Santosh Mandal
Director :Alankrita Shrivastava
Producer : Prakash Jha
Written by :Alankrita Shrivastava
Studio :Prakash Jha Productions
Released date: 14 January 2011 (2011-01-14)
Rating: 2 / 5

Hollywood has given innumerable chick flicks namely the likes of 13 Going On 30, Sex And The City, Bridget Jones Diary, Clueless among others. However, Bollywood has never really experimented much in this domain. Not too long ago filmmaker Rajshree Ojha burnt her fingers with her attempt Aisha and now Alankrita Shrivastava is trying her hands with a chick flick Turning 30.

The film is about an urban woman Naina (Gul Panag), living in Mumbai and how her life takes a turn when she hits the age of 30.

Story and Movie Analysis:

To begin with, her stable boyfriend Rishab (Siddharth Makkar) dumps her for a richer and hotter girl. And then she loses her job.

Fighting with her mother's insistence to get her married Naina somehow manages to get a hold of her life when her college affair Jay (Purab Kohli) who comes back and proposes her for marriage. Now whether she marries him or he just becomes her rebound case and how she gets her life together follows through the rest of the plot.

Turning 30 takes off very well but suddenly turns into a tripe plot. Repetition is a recurring issue in the film. The fact that Naina doesn't come to terms with her break up and keeps making attempts of getting back with Rishab is also reinstated several times. Despite that neither do you feel for the character nor does her emotional turmoil touch you.

Artist Performance:
Gul Panag delivers an elegant performance. She expresses the varied feelings so well and literally grabs the film from the word go. In fact, her fine-tuned performance stays with you even after the film wraps up. Purab Kohli does very well. Sid Makkar gives a good account of himself. The two friends - portrayed by Tillotama Shome [as Malini] and Jeneva Talwar [as Ruksana] - are perfect. Satyadeep Misra gets minimal scope. Ira Dubey is okay in a brief role. Anita Kanwar [as Gul's mom] looks her part. Rahul Singh is okay. Sameer Malhotra is fair, while Bikramjeet Kanwarpal does well.

Technical and Other Departments:
Moreover, the film appears straight out of novel. Director Alankrita Shrivastava seemingly appears to be a big fan of chick lit or chick flicks and produces a mishmash of all of them. The screenplay is exactly the way one would visualize a scene while reading a book. Another sore point is the dialogues which sound very lyrical and bookish as if one is reading them out and the film is 80 % in English. The music isn't appeasing either.

Final View:
On the whole, TURNING 30!!! has its moments, but they are few and far between. In totality, however, it misses the mark.