Movie Review - Turning 30 ! ! * Gul Panag , Purab Kohli

Take a walk in any metro of the country and you will come across gazillions of single, career-minded independent women who despite being on the wrong side of 29, inching slowly towards the dreaded 3-0, seem to be taking life in their stride, unabashed by the sneers of the nosy aunt in the neighborhood.

Whoever said ‘30 is the new 20’, definitely knew what she was talking about, because in the 21^st era, life of a single-30-year old isn’t a big taboo. Offcourse there are social & emotional pressures but camouflaged by self aspirations, supportive friends & family, a couple of years can be easily bargained for.

Starring Gul Panag, Purab Kohli, ‘Turning 30’ is Naina’s journey as she grapples through life in the face of her 30^th birthday. Does Director Alankrita succumb to glossy filmy affair or does she manage to deliver coming-of-age cinema?

Cruising through a fabulous life in the city of dreams, Naina (Gul Panag) has the best of both her personal & professional worlds with devoted boyfriend Rishab (Siddharth Makkar) and simultaneously great things at work. Naina is in bliss over her life being complete! Or so she thinks. Just as fatefully, everything begins to collapse around her. She is dumped, side-lined by boss for promotion and to make things worse for her, almost everyone around her won’t stop plugging the downsides of her reaching the big THREE-OH. At around the same time, old friend Jai (Purab Kohli) makes a re-entry into her life wanting to salvage their past relationship, this time with a promise of marriage & the fancy things that go with it.

Turning 30 starts off confidently and quite intelligently, if I may so. Sadly few minutes into it, the film fails to hold or garner any empathy for its stereotypic characterizations with too-much whining and less soul. The main fault can be pinpointed to the writing of debutant director-cum-writer Alankrita Srivastava who doesn’t seem to be able to decide whether the film should be preachy or factual or realistic or entertaining or all of the above, In an attempt to pick up the mentioned varied chords and tie them together, the script is strewn all over and ends up being a sloppy slam book of wisecracks rather than an interesting full-fledged film. To be honest, being a 30-year-old is scary and not something a lot of us can embrace excitedly. Considering that, the mood is almost right and so is the protagonist but the telling tale of the urban chick’s adventures straining hard for effect. Everyone seems to be going on endlessly about silly problems like broken hearts & ageing as if it were the end of the world, moreover infuriatingly as it’s neither engaging nor something worth brooding about. Another major problem, which I’m quite surprised the filmmaker overlooked, is the excessive use of English, dialogues which ping-pong from cheesy to embarrassing to corny with too much talk about sex, swearing that makes your stomach squirm & uncomfortable. Sample this - "Rishabh can be quite a pain in the ass. And I mean, literally."

On the brighter side, Alankrita got her casting card perfectly picked when she chose the sassy Gul to play Naina. None of the Btown glam dolls could have done any justice or bring half the spark that Gul does to the character. She is delightfully spontaneous, affable (atleast when she’s not weeping hoarsely) The male leads have not much to do, but Purab does leave a sweetened lasting impression with his boyish appeal & endearing charm which is alive, thankfully not-overdone in his act.

Turning 30 could have been a fine example of a Woman’s celebration of reclaiming, holding the realms of her own life stalwartly, just the way I know many city-bred women do every day. Unfortunately all that goes bust, owing to an incorrect; superficial rendition of the concept, hung-over on Bridget Jones series or closer to home Advaita Kala’s ‘Almost Single’. The film has its fun moments and many drag ones, the latter being more predominant, but in totality it lacks the punch and does not make for a passable watch.