Shivaay- worth a watch?

In the midst of all the hustle on the day of Dhanteras, I managed to remove time for the much-awaited film Shivaay. The trailer of the film surely had all of us intriguing about the fact that what the movie is all about? Maybe romantic or maybe thriller or action, the guess list is endless. Whenever I watched the trailer, I surely had some random imaginary stories floating in my head but this was completely different from all my guesses.

Ajay Devgn’s second directorial film, Shivaay is a bollywood masala thriller chaat with the sprinkling of emotion. Ajay Devgn plays the role of a regular guy next door who earns his bread and butter as a mountaineer in the Himalayas.He flirts then falls in love with an ambitious firang tourist cum student (Erika Kaar), almost like those regular stories. 

Love blossoms but she wants something else from life, she heads back to Bulgaria and leaves behind her newborn daughter which leads to the Father daughter bonding in the film.

Years pass by and one fine day the moment of truth, Gaura (Abigail Eames), finds about her mother and insists on meeting her once and of course our Shivaay Daddy’s heart melts and he agrees to take his daughter to Bulgaria to reunite with her mom. The story takes a turn there, when the angle of human trafficking is included; our regular common man turns superhero when his daughter is kidnapped. 

In all this a girl called Anu from Indian embassy (Sayesha Saigal), helps Shivaay out. Vir Das is also seen in the film, playing Anu’s love interest and a hacker. With all the action and drama and emotional dragging, finally the moment of reuniting between the father and the daughter is beautiful. But while one is just soaking in that there comes the villain who beats the hell out of Shivaay for a long long time, but still Shivaay manages to survive and do vinaash of the villain with a trishul like ice, super filmy.

The cinematography and the visuals surely leave one breathless. Aseem Bajaj is the cinematographer of the film. The peaky mountains, deep caves, the timing of each frame, reflects the director and cinematographer’s co-relation. But all this beauty only saves the film for a short stretch. Erika Kaar and Abigail Eames have done complete justice to their roles, better than the other firang heroines living in our country for years but still cant say dialogue clearly or depict emotions. Girish Karnad and Saurabh Shukla were also seen in small but pivotal roles. Sayessha’s role looked promising but she just couldn’t live upto it.

Music of the film definitely lives upto all the hype. Backgound music timing is great and surely helps lift the subplot. My favourite song is Har Har Mahadev, which is already a rage among the youth. Niharika Bhasin Khan has handled the costumes aspect of the film.

As film being very close to a regular life there was not much to experiment and do some major flashy clothing. Since the most of the chunk of the movie is shot in the mountains, the cast is heavily dressed in winter gear. Neon and bright colored Columbia and the north face jackets with reflectors. and heavy tibety knits. 

Love the red tartan ponchu Shivaay wore in the hills, gave a trippy vibe to his character.

Everybody had their set of clothing, which matched well to their characters sketches.

With time we see Erika get into the Indie vibe, starting from Silver Jewelry to some ethnic tunics to a pretty white suit for the Holi scene. Because of the scenes being quite long in the film, continuity aspect has surely been taken care of, from the aging of the garments to keeping them as genuine as possible. 

Anu aka Sayesha’s look didn’t quite work well for me, from her tacky leather pants to those weird tight fitted jackets to her perfectly curled hair to her heavy makeup, nothing made sense at all. Wish her look was kept fuss free.

Although the movie was pretty long but all in all a great attempt by director cum producer cum actor, so one can definitely go watch it once with the family during these festive holidays. Atleast something different from those same old age romance and love triangle sagas. Going for Ae dil hai mushkil today, so shall share my review on it tomorrow.

Happy Diwali.

Love,

Cine Closet.