STORY
In order to feed his wife and a kid, a struggling theatre actor Shiva impersonates as a transgender and begs on the street but sticks with his aim to break into the film industry and get a mainstream role but suffers setback after setback.
REVIEW
Ardh is a ZEE5 and visibly a pretty low-budget film where the heart and soul of the plot are in the right direction as well as Rajpal Yadav‘s performance. Sadly, nothing else does a favor to the film.
The film emphasizes on Mumbai being a city of dreams that either comes true or gets broken. Shiva is one of those millions of poor individuals who wants to become an actor in the film industry. Luckily, he is a theater actor but the theater is shut down due to lack of attendance. In the screenplay, the film addresses the struggling actors suffering from nepotism and the humiliation that the actors face during their hard time in the auditions like the staff assuming if the actor was actually a water boy or a cleaner as well as denying him a chance because of his short height.
In the middle of the film, Shiva in his transgender get up is paid by an interviewee on the bus stop and is asked to pray for him. That gives an idea to Shiva to earn money by disguising himself and begging on the street. In the last phase, a rickshaw driver offers him for sex to which he refuses. I actually guessed that after failing all his chances, the film will conclude on Shiva eventually giving up on acting and settling his mind to sell his body as a transgender sex worker. This could have been one of the most tragic conclusions of any Bollywood films in recent years. But like I said before in many film reviews, Bollywood don’t know how to give a technically fitting conclusion to most of the films at all.
Not sure if the director Palash Muchhal did this on purpose but my brother Wasey noted something interesting that I didn’t. He noted that while Shiva struggles to get the role, Sonu Nigam sings the male version of the track ‘Zindagi’. By the end of the film, when Shiva gives up and reaches to his usual begging routine as a transgender, ‘Zindagi’ is now sung by Rekha Bhardwaj hence convincing the audience that the change in voice from a man to a woman is the indication that his fate has permanently turned into becoming a beggar as a transgender. Only the director can confirm if this theory is accurate but I find the theory pretty interesting for a film that stood low profile on the aesthetics.
CLOSING REMARKS
I am unsure why the film was not decently financed despite being a ZEE5 exclusive. The plot was promising but the entire execution and the direction were sub-standard. There is no life in performances, Rajpal looks like a lonely bread and butter of the film. Yes, I know Rajpal Yadav in the lead cannot guarantee a box-office success. That is not how this industry works at all. But the film also does not deserves to be produced at a low scale. ZEE5 could have done some favor with a very good plot and a struggling screenplay but didn’t.
RATING 3/10
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Sami Naik | Film Critic 