Phillauri (film)


Phillauri is a 2017 Indian Hindi fantasy comedy film directed by Anshai Lal and produced by Fox Star Studios with Anushka Sharma and her brother Karnesh Sharma under their banner of Clean Slate Films. Director Navdeep Singh and writer Sudip Sharma are associated with the film as creative producers. The film stars Anushka Sharma, Diljit Dosanjh, Suraj Sharma and Mehreen Pirzada in the lead roles. The film's first official poster was released on February 3, 2017. The film was released on March 24, 2017.

Plot

A young man Kanan returns to India from Canada to marry his long-term girlfriend Anu, but comes to know that he is a Manglik and has to marry a tree before marrying her. He reluctantly marries the tree, which is duly chopped down after the completion of the ceremony. As a result, from that day onward he is haunted by the spirit of a woman named Shashi, who lived in that particular tree and hence claims to now be 'married' to him.
The story of Phillauri and Shashi is slowly revealed via the latter's flashbacks. Back in an unspecified time period, Shashi is a bright young woman who never fails to read the works of a poet named Phillauri that is regularly published in a local weekly. Everyone in the village of Phillaur thinks that the poems are written by the singer Roop Lal 'Phillauri', who is the heart-throb of the village. However Roop Lal notices that Shashi, unlike all the other village girls, never comes to hear him sing. When he confronts her one-day and tells her that he is the Phillauri who writes the poetry by narrating one of his famous poems to her, he is shocked when Shashi slaps and insults him. She asks him to use his talent – of being able to connect with the common man through his songs – for something important and not for frivolous matters. From that day onwards Roop Lal is a changed man, dedicating his life to knowing and understanding the poetry of Phillauri, and spreading its message via his beautiful singing to others.
On one particular night while Roop Lal is alone at home singing one of Phillauri's poems, Shashi comes to him and reveals that she is the one who writes poetry under the pseudonym of 'Phillauri'. Subsequently, love blossoms between the two, but Shashi's elder brother eventually comes to know about the affair and intervenes between the lovers. Roop Lal confronts Shashi's brother and admits to having been an alcohol-addicted good-for-nothing who still is not worthy of her, but tells him that he is going to Amritsar to record all the songs written by Shashi and will eventually return and ask for her hand in marriage.
The very fact that Shashi writes poetry is a revelation to her brother, and as time passes he too reads the poems and starts appreciating her obvious talent. Meanwhile, Roop Lal records the songs in Amritsar and is paid a handsome fee of three hundred rupees. He immediately sends the entire amount as a money order to Shashi's brother, along with a letter stating his intention to return and marry her on Baisakhi. Shashi's brother, by now convinced of Roop Lal's changed nature and good intentions as well as the deep love between the couple, starts the preparations for her marriage.
On the day of the wedding Shashi comes to know that she is pregnant, but does not disclose the news to anyone except her close friend Amrit. She expectantly waits for Roop Lal along with all her relatives and the entire village, but eventually the day ends with him nowhere to be seen on any of the buses from Amritsar. Her brother has to face the intense embarrassment and shame of sending everyone away, and this in turn hurts Shashi so much that she commits suicide due to an overwhelming sense of sadness, despair and betrayal.
In the midst of all these flashbacks by Shashi's spirit the parallel storyline in the present continues with Kanan, ending up in trouble with Anu who feels that he is not really interested in marrying her. In order to clear the misunderstanding Shashi finally manages to reveal her presence to Anu as well, and having heard her entire painful story Anu realises that Shashi's spirit is in fact still stuck on the mortal plane due to her unfulfilled love. At that point Anu's grandmother asks kanan to say something to his bride, and shashi prompts him with her poem. Grandma sings a few lines of the same, being her favourite, which as fate would have it is the one Roop Lal recorded. The record label mentions the recording date as 1919, which results in an epiphany for Kanan who immediately takes Anu to the site of the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, which took place on that very day 98 years ago.
The movie ends with Shashi's spirit reuniting finally with her lover Roop Lal's. Before they both ascend to heaven Shashi tells Kanan and Anu to love and cherish each other always, and that is what they promise each other as they embark on a new phase of their very own love story.

Cast

Principal photography of the film commenced in April 2016. The shooting of the film went on floors after the Punjabi festival of Vaisakhi 2016. First day of the shoot was on 19 April 2016.

Soundtrack

The music of the film is composed by Shashwat Sachdev with Jasleen Royal as a guest composer while the lyrics have been penned by Anvita Dutt Guptan, Aditya Sharma, Neeraj Rajawat and Shellee. Sameer Uddin has composed the background score. The music rights are acquired by T-Series. The first song "Dum Dum" was released on 16 February 2017. The soundtrack was released on 6 March 2017.

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, Phillauri has an approval score of 40% based on 10 reviews with an average rating of 6.1 out of 10.
Nihit Bhave of The Times of India gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 and said that, "The idea is superbly original, culturally on point and has great potential. The problem is, you only get what you see in the trailer." Sweta Kausal of Hindustan Times gave the film a rating of 2.5 out of 5 saying that, "There is nothing extraordinary about Phillauri. It is a light-hearted, average love story." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 saying that, "The film is a lively, lighthearted drama enlivened with some fine cinematic touches." Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express criticized the film for being too slow saying that, "The pacing is not just languid, it is positively slow, and it allows scenes to go on for much longer than they should." and gave the film a rating of 2 out of 5. Rajeev Masand of News18 praised the performances of actors Suraj Sharma, Diljit Dosanjh and Anushka Sharma but criticized the long length of the film and gave the film a rating of 3 out of 5 saying that, "Phillauri isn’t a consistently smooth ride. It’s uneven and bumpy and unforgivably slow in portions. But a lot of it works and some of it flies."

Accolades