November 07, 2019
Ayushamann Khurrana, it can be now declared, has singularly taken the responsibility of getting the average Indian dudebro from the hinterland woke. Khuranna, a charming performer, makes the average look exceptional, emphasising his character’s ordinariness by making it appear as an endearingly standout feature as in film after film, he goes about confronting lowkey emasculating terror with a raw, self-deprecating determination. 
Bala Movie Review: Ayushmann Khurranas Film Is A Delightful Parody On Bollywood
In Bala, he’s an angsty young man who masks his self-loathing with a charming personality entirely derived from Bollywood heroes, mainly Shah Rukh Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. His balding head, which he says women spot before they see the full moon on a karvachauth night, has crushed his self-confidence and he often breaks into bitter monologues, blaming everyone and everything, but mostly his father’s (Saurabh Shukla) faulty genes. It doesn’t help that the place he works at - a marketing firm for a fairness cream called Pretty You - obviously has an ageist work culture. That his younger brother has a thick cover of hair also troubles him but the worst humiliation comes, as it often does, from only one place: the society’s condescendingly sympathetic gaze. 
Amar Kaushik, who made the powerful Stree in 2018, employs an interestingly empathetic gaze in Bala. The director, along with writer Niren Bhat, walks a tightrope, with complex gender, class and issues of colorism at stake. And yet Bala, thanks to its clever and subversive writing, manages to carefully save itself from what could’ve been an alarmingly problematic film... to become a less problematic film.
After several failed attempts at getting his hair to grow (this includes applying animal poop and semen, rubbing raw onion, standing upside down so the roots get better blood flow), Bala finally gets a hair patch. This makes him look like the young Khans of the 90s: innocuous but with a hint of mischief. He falls for a TikTok star, Pari Mishra (Yami Gautam) who endorses the fairness cream he markets and sets out from Kanpur to woo her with real charm and fake hair.
The best way to read Bala is to see it as a parody of Bollywood. Just like Dreamgirl’s self-reflexive humour, Bala too is deliberately peppered with Bollywood tropes, Hindi film references (Deewar to Kal Ho Na Ho to Gully Boy), exaggerated and melodramatic Hindi film dialogues and an ending that subverts the Bollywood template to set bold new ground rules. From using TikTok as a device to show a 90s style romance between Bala and Pari to invoking Bachchan during a serious life crisis, this is a Bollywood film that adores Bollywood but also quietly critiques it.
In a scene where Bala is about to get a hair patch fixed, the camera trains itself on sketches of Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan, pauses for half a second, before moving on. Essentially, Kaushik seems to be saying that while a healthy diet of Bollywood films has infused the leading man with a lot of character and personality, it’s also made him internalise the conventional idea of what a good-looking man (and woman) ought to look like.The film’s obsession with Shah Rukh Khan, an actor known for his hair, dimples and charm, is as much a celebration of Khan’s cultural weight as it is an indictment of just how much social conditioning is a product of how masculinity is depicted in mass media.
The film’s other strength is its writing. There’s such sparkling with in Niren Bhat’s joyous, wonderful one-liners that once you’ve bought into the loud and eccentric universe of the film, the plot becomes secondary. It’s easy to bundle the milieu of the Northern Indian hinterland as homogenous but it isn’t. Bala recognises these differences and focuses on the specifics of the Kanpur-Lucknow slang and while it has no room for subtlety, it paints a wildly entertaining portrait of small-town India.
While the film works for most parts, what the makers have done with Bhumi Pednekar’s character, Latika, is absolutely unforgivable. Instead of getting an actor whose skin matches the character requirement, Pednekar’s skin is browfaced tackily and doesn’t appear natural, becoming the film’s biggest undoing. Although she remains the film’s moral compass, things get laughably ironic when her character calls another one out on, well, racist behaviour.
It’s other flaw is the abrupt way it reaches its resolution where a character’s worldview is transformed in one moment of epiphany, which is followed by a clunky, NGO-volunteer type speech. What’s notable is how both the characters played by women enjoy complete autonomy and do not exist solely in context of the male protagonist. 
While Khuranna and Pednekar are reliably and expectedly good, the film’s real discovery is Yami Gautam. It’s not wrong to say that Gautam’s career has now begun. As a young woman who likes ‘attneson’ and is excited about ‘marriaze’ Gautam nails a very specific kind of small-town-modern-girl, disappearing into her part with such seamlessness, you’d mistake her for an actual TikTok sensation. Mispronouncing the ‘ja’ sound with ‘za’ is a hyper-specific phonetic mistake many make as it’s essentially done when the person is trying to avoid saying ‘ja’ whenn ‘za’ might be correct. However, a consequence of this is when the person uses ‘za’ when ‘ja’ is correct usage, like in ‘age’ and ‘marriage.’
Gautam gets that dialect spot-on and is a sheer joy to watch. As is the film’s supporting cast, from Saurabh Shukla to Seema Pahwa to Abhishek Banerjee. 
While the film might pretend to have a social-consciousness (which, to an extent, it does but the messaging is too spelt out, too hamfisted), Bala is both a celebration and critique of Bollywood as it deals with and calls out the false expectations and self-deceptions the movies unknowingly perpetuate.
It’s a potent film that exudes a lot of warmth and feel-good energy, a meta drama that winks at itself, one that knows what films can do and hence gives us a hero who subverts the very idea of what constitutes a Hindi film hero. He may not get the girl but still doesn’t lose the will to stretch his arms wide open with the hope of finding love. 
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Politic
Mary Trump 'energized' as uncle 'Donald's campaign spirals into chaos'
Mar 29, 2024
Donald Trump's campaign is in chaos, and his niece says she's energized.Mary Trump, the niece of the former president and a psychologist by trade, has previously been critical of her uncle.On Thursday, she said her uncle's failures are adding up.ALSO READ: A neuroscientist reveals how Trump and Biden's cognitive impairments are different"As the RNC’s fundraising falters and Donald’s campaign spirals into chaos, I am energized!" she said in a Substack post.She then continued:"When Donald dominates the news cycle, it’s hard not to feel overwhelmed. Every bad headline has a negative impact. But then I remember something crucial: There’s usually more to the story than meets the eye. I’m determined to cut through the media noise and share with you all the good that happened this week. These are the headlines we need to remain energized and hopeful that the media largely ignored."Mary Trump goes on to highlight President Joe Biden's recent fundraising hauls."President Biden’s $155 million+ war chest has just received another turbo boost, bringing the total of cash on hand to at least $180 million. (By comparison, between his campaign and the RNC, Donald barely has over $50 million — and continues to drain the accounts to cover his absolutely staggering legal expenses)," she wrote. "This is a development that could significantly increase Biden’s ability to influence the narrative in crucial swing states."This, she says, also tells us a lot about voter excitement for Biden."While critics have expressed doubts about the degree to which the Democratic base is fired up as compared to 2020, today’s $25 million fundraiser, raised with donations ranging from $250 to $500,000, should put any doubts to rest — yes, we are absolutely behind President Biden and Vice President Harris and we’re in this fight until the end," she wrote.Read the full post here.
READ MORE
Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Ruby Franke’s Husband REVEALS Alleged Rules He Had to Follow at Home | E! News
March 28, 2024
_mU-3lE2QwI
#KenanThompson speaks out following the #QuietonSet documentary. (🎥: Tamron Hall Show) #shorts
March 28, 2024
8AGP-Gfw_Ek
King Charles Shares "Great Sadness" at Missing Royal Appearance | E! News
March 28, 2024
lyizFqf1kQY
Martha Reeves Walk of Fame Ceremony
March 27, 2024
QzyezumEPtQ
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
Montell Jordan Dishes On Young MC Wedding, 'This Is How Date Night' Plans | TMZ
March 28, 2024
G3SMExj-qio
Davina Potratz Says TV Not Helping 'Selling Sunset' Relationship Woes | TMZ
March 28, 2024
D4piy4GNm4k
Logan Paul Rips Graham Bensinger Over Documentary, You Promised Apple TV+ | TMZ Live
March 28, 2024
NiSDpZhZklQ
Prince William pinned royal medal to Spice Girl Mel B’s boobs #shorts
March 28, 2024
O1cQ0UW9pco
Jennifer Garner shares ‘hard’ part of raising her and Ben Affleck’s kids
March 28, 2024
3Q7mZaVUdgc
50 Cent's ex Daphne Joy named as an alleged sex worker in Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs lawsuit #shorts
March 28, 2024
yhLFI8DG9rM
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
28
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
PSG W - Hacken W
28
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Barcelona W - SK Brann W
27
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Chelsea W - Ajax W
27
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Lyon W - SL Benfica W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.