Premachi Goshta Movie Review: Too simplistic, shallow and boring
Marathi, Regional Tadka — By Rasik on February 4, 2013 9:14 pm
‘Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai’ and the Television series ‘Eka Lagnachi Doosri Goshta’ have made Satish Rajwade a popular name in Maharashtrian households. I am not a big fan of Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai, but the television serial was a welcome change from the glut of substandard stuff on television. My main grouse with the former is that it borrowed heavily from Richard Linklater’s Before Sunsrise/Before Sunset. The makers of the film lacked the integrity to let people know their inspiration. On the contrary, Satish Rajwade accepted all the praise showered open his ‘fresh idea’ with open hands, by an obviously ignorant Marathi public and media. Never once, in interviews or otherwise, did he acknowledge his inspiration and that has made him enter my bad books. Though the television serial did help him redeem himself a bit. In a curious case of selling the rights for a remake of an ‘original concept’ of a film that is inspired in the first place, the makers, quite hilariously, have sold the rights for Mumbai-Pune-Mumbai’s remake in Telugu titled ‘Made in Vizag’ to be directed by Kanimani. How I wish somebody lets Linklater know of all this. 
Last year, Rajwade’s Badam Rani Ghulam Chor failed to rise above the popular Marathi play, Makdachya Haathi Champage( A champagne in the hands of a monkey), it was based on. The promos of Premachi Goshta that were released late last year were promising and that Atul Kulkarni was visibly reinventing himself by playing a romantic lead was reason enough for me to get excited. But Premachi Goshta turned out to be a spoiler as it is simply a bad film, notwithstanding Atul Kulkarni’s performance. The decently promoted film, has Atul Kulkarni playing Ram Subramaniam, a failed writer who is forced to write the scripts of remakes of Tamil/Telugu films into Marathi or hindi. His wife(Sulekha Talwalkar) isn’t too successful an actress herself and believes that two professionally unsuccessful people aren’t capable of living together happily and hence opts for a divorce even when Ram feels that relationships should be given their own sweet time and opting out of them isn’t an option. Enter Sonal(Sagarika Ghatge), who ‘accidentally’ ends up meeting Ram in the marriage counselor’s office, they get talking and are left impressed by each other. Sonal too is seeking divorce from her husband as she has come to believe in the ‘you are either married or happy’ philosophy. Another contrived accident ensures that Sonal starts assisting Ram in his work and by then you needn’t be a genius to guess the third act of the film. But, hell yes, a boy and a girl(or a man and a woman in this case) have to fall in love in a romantic film, titled Premachi Goshta( A Story of Love) at that. It is instead the journey rather than the destination that makes or breaks such films and Premachi Goshta fails quite miserably there.
The major problem lies in the script, written by Chinmay Kelkar, itself. Apart from a few resonating dialogues that echo the views of modern Indian men and women on love and marriage, there isn’t much to take home. Too simplistic for its own good, the plot unfolds rather predictably making the journey to the destination a boring affair. The tendency to speak out everything certainly left me squirming in my seat. Nothing is left to read between the lines and subtlety is thrown out of the window. Not to say anything about the total lack of depth in the story and characters.
Rajwade, rather annoyingly, doesn’t seem to have come out of his TV serial mode and directs his film like one, quite unabashedly. The framing of the characters and also all the talking they do is remnant of his TV serials. What also irked me was there was absolutely no sense of time and place in the film. What Mumbai were they living in? Empty and smooth roads, clean beaches and even a scenic fort by the sea that one can visit to ponder over one’s thoughts in complete peace and isolation! This is certainly not the Mumbai we know. The art direction is pathetic to say the least. The houses are spic and span, the offices humungous and very well-kept and we are talking about people struggling professionally here. Only hanging posters of tamil films like Boss Enigra Bhaskaran( which the sharp eyes of our Chief Editor noticed from the trailer itself 
) don’t add authenticity to the utterly artificial and shallow production design.
Now, the performances of the romantic leads are easily the most crucial part of such a film. But in this case too the film turns out to be a mixed bag. Atul Kulkarni, for once, plays a mainstream romantic lead and the brilliant actor excels at that too. His earnest performance , by quite a distance, was the biggest positive and probably the only reason that held me back from walking out of the film. On the other hand, Sagarika Ghatge is a casting disaster. Once you are done with admiring her pretty face and charming smile you realize that her performance is very weak indeed. Her suspect dialogue delivery and terrible pronunciations make you wonder whether Rajwade isn’t aware of a procedure called Screen Testing. Whatever little freshness that her face brings to the film is washed away in no time. Her face, be it anytime of night or day, is always well-kept reiterating the feeling that Rajwade is still stuck in his television mode. Sulekha Talwalkar, Satish Rajwade and Rohini Hattangadi in supporting roles are up-to-the-mark.
The film at times almost suggests that it belongs to the school of thought where all you need to have is good looking people, wearing good looking clothes, hanging around in good looking places and the audience will inevitably fall for it. This certain sense of taking the audience for granted in the film hasn’t really gone down well with me.
You realize that somewhere there was a scope to at least make the characters more interesting when Atul Kulkarni explains his Tamil surname by just saying, ‘Mom Maharashtrian, dad Tamil. Matunga.’ . Nuances of Ram’s interesting profession of remaking South films into marathi/hindi are also mostly unexplored. It seems like Rajwade and the scriptwriter Chinmay Kelkar never took their plot and characters seriously. So I fail to see a reason why we too should take their efforts seriously.
So, Premachi Goshta is an utterly simplistic, shallow and boring love story that is not worth the time and even the tax-free charge you pay for the ticket.
Rasik
Cinema, a few years ago, has taken over cricket as my first love. The World Wide Web is to be blamed for that. Deeply in love with present Marathi Cinema.
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Agreed… word-to-word !!
Thank you!
The film is gr8,acting of both actors very good of very high standard .very heart touching love story.The review is totally wrong,bizarre,
picture pahanya adhi he vachla asta tar nasto gelo me… pakau picture aahe haa…(I should have read this before watching the film. It is truly a boring movie.)
Ek number Boring Movie ahe.Kay gosta ahe te konalach kalle navte theatre madhe.Ani Evda slow movie kasa kay sahan hou shakto.
(This is no.1 boring film. Nobody understood the story in the theatre. And how can you bear with such a slow film.)
please search for other options while loosing money on this movie.
Glad that you agree that the film is boring.
Saw this movie today. After one month the movie was almost house-full.
Gr8 movie by Satish Rajwade…looks like public is loving this simple love story and me too…ye public hai sub janti hain who is boring…:)
Though I have yet seen the movie but from the review it appears that the somebody related to Movie has really done something bad to you and you are merely anguish and vent all you anger on the movie review. it appears more to be a vengeance and revenge than a review. From the other honest reviews that i see, the movie does not sound to be as bad as you are trying to portray it to be. Sorry to say but u are too immature to review movies in the first place and suggest you get out of your house and get back to your old ways of cricket or whatever that was you used to do. I really felt stupid to have read this review.
It is hilarious how you can reach to such conclusions without even seeing the film. Just the fact that you have not seen the film negates your entire comment.
I humbly suggest you to watch the film (it is still in theatres!) and then come back. Till then i see no reason to take your conclusions and also your suggestion seriously.
But thanks for commenting!
awesome movie. Really very nice movie. and feel this movie do not just watch. and it can be felt by those who are in love. Again I am telling ” Do not just watch this movie also feel it”
I think cinema can be felt only by ‘listening’ and ‘watching’ the audio/visuals.
So I can’t really understand what you are suggesting when you say, ‘Do not just watch this movie but also feel it’.
If you mean to say that i haven’t given the film a fair chance then you are wrong.
I think, more than FEELING, this movie needs FILLING. There is a lot of scope to FILL in the Blanks. So basically, dont watch the movie.. FILL it.
Time to review Rasik’s Review.
Rating – Poor.
People had, in past liked movie like Hum aapke hai kaun beyond Director’s expectations (and even everyone’s to mention) despite sheer criticism and a tag like “Wedding Cassette” just due to huge public liking and response.. so who cares about critics and that too some amateur (to be precise). I too follow movies closely and its my only love, and admire this movies music amd freshness and different than current movies lot (marathi) and the way People responded to this movie it was great to watch.. At times something no need to be perfect.. just entertainment matterz.. and those who didnt really understand the story of this movie (as I can see aboce comments), I really feel pitty for their brains.. So just enjoy if you like it and if don’t appreciate the efforts.. else get a camera and try your and.. Sheer dissapointment with Rasik’s rewview is that no mention of music at all, there’s that subtle song Olya Sanj veli (Subtalty exists! and not thrown away) which is so fresh and pleases ears.. (you may want to compre the little part with KANK title track outt it, but that’s fine I believe).. so Mr. Rasik(?) people seldom care about what you review..
Meanwhile I just realised why the hell I’m wasting my important time on you.. off to You Tube – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgwHFLr0xR0
Adios!
I do admit that i should have mentioned the lovely song. It was quite a miss on my part.
But i am not fond of this tendency amongst Indian film buffs to like the whole film only because it has one good song. I hold this tendency responsible for the low quality in general of cinema in India.
Thanks for the comment!
Very nice movie. Its the simplicity of the movie that makes it so lovable. Its true that it gets predictable at times (and reminds you of “Eka Lagnachi Dusari Goshta”) but still you feel like watching it again and again for its refreshing presentation. This love story is much much better then all teh shit and crap that Chopra-SRK-Johar have come up in recent times.
I would recommend everyone to watch it on the big screen at least once.
Agreed. Watched only for atul kulkarni. Sagarika ghatage was disaster.
I totally agree with the comment by Rasik. The film couldn’t meet with my expectations at any moment till end!!
Glad you agree with me on the film. I really wonder how so many people ended up loving the film. I was wondering whether something is wrong with me.
you are shit in reviewing movies… its a poetic movie anyways not gonna explain you and waste my time…..so u suck and your review sucks….and that’s what my review is about u reviewing the movie…
Poetic?? LoL!! Do you know what poetry is? This is a rubbish movie. Dont defame poetry. “Cupaatil chahaat khaarine viraghaLat jaava tashi mI tuzyaat viraghaLat chaalaley” this is poetic? This is pathetic ! There are better ways to express your feelings than “chahaat khaari” !
Nonsense Movie..!!
Satish Rajwade rocks again!!! Story line is simple.. Songs are very good!! Feel each second of movie…
Watch for superb acting of Atul Kulkarni, Rohini Hattangadi, Sulekha Talwalkar
My rating: 4/5 (One is less for bad lead role choice of Sagarika Ghatge)
Rasik,
Sorry to say but you are too young to review a film like Premachi goshta. Start writing after some years with more experience.. Check out reviews on other sites to know more..
And Ranjeet,
You might not having knowledge about cinema and its art.. So any explanation to you is in vain.