Calendar Girls review !!!

There’s a scene in Nisha Pahuja’s documentary The World Before Her when a Miss India contestant whimpers that she doesn’t want whatever Dr Jamuna Pai wants to inject into the young girl’s face. It’s going to make her lips plumper, Pai promises. “Please let me do it,” says Pai in a voice that’s so polite and so uncompromising that it will give you chills.For those who have seen The World Before Her, Madhur Bhandarkar’s new film Calendar Girls packs a punch with its very first shot. There on screen, with her upper lip plumped to artificial perfection, is Ruhi Singh from The World Before Her. She’s playing a young model from Rohtak who's been selected for a much-publicised modeling event. The similarities between Singh’s real life and the role she has in Calendar Girls are unmistakable.  The parallels are a reminder that Bhandarkar may be lamentable director and a terrible actor, but the reason he can’t be dismissed is his ability to spot interesting stories in real life. He’s shown this skill ever since Chandni Bar and it’s why actors like Tabu, Konkona Sen Sharma, Kareena Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra have worked with him. It's also the reason Bhandarkar has so many National Awards to his name.Unfortunately, Bhandarkar’s nose for stories isn’t matched either by his writing or directorial talent. It doesn’t help that he chooses to collaborate with people like his writing partner on Calendar Girls, Rohit Banawlikar. There are a lot of people who work hard to make Calendar Girls worse than it could have been, like the sound department that not only layers the film with a terrible background score, but also makes it painfully obvious that the dialogues were dubbed. However, few can match Banawlikar’s contribution toCalendar Girls’ downfall. His dialogues are so awkward and stilted that you will feel physical pain while listening to the actors struggle with their lines. This is particularly disappointing because – brace yourselves – a lot of the conversations in Calendar Girls pass the Bechdel Test. Much like in real life, the women chatter a lot about work. They're ambitious, hardworking, and a credible mix of good and bad qualities. They're all friends who accept each other's quirks with an eye roll and a grin. Barring their terrible make-up and wardrobe, these women are all surprisingly normal, which is a huge improvement from the last time Bhandarkar wandered into the world of glamour, in the godawful Fashion.Mayuri from Rohtak, Paroma Ghosh from Kolkata, Sharon Pinto from Goa, Nandita from Hyderabad and Nazneen from Lahore-via-London are the calendar girls of the title. All of them come to Mumbai with dreams of success. None of them wants to return to the stifling worlds they've left behind. There’s one moment where someone asks Sharon (Kyra Dutt), “Isn’t the glamour world all about booze, drugs, sex and orgies?” Sharon drily replies, “I really hope so.”There are moments of insight that Bhandarkar sprinkles in Calendar Girls that will make you desperately wish this film had been attempted by a better director. For instance, Mayuri (Ruhi Singh) from small-town India is keenly aware of social media and adept at using it. She also gives us a hilarious description of a make-out session in a tabela. Nandita (Akanksha Puri) from Hyderabad giggles and confesses she’s ‘experimented’ with a girl. It’s poignant that Nandita is the first to rush into marriage. You can't help but remember how vehemently and unconvincingly she'd protested, "I'm straight" when she'd first mentioned her lesbian experience. It's almost as though she's being goaded into marriage by an anxiety that she may not be straight.At the same time, Calendar Girls gives us bowtie-wearing photographers named Timmy (one expects a Pomeranian, but sees Rohit Roy instead); a Bengali family (with ghastly non-Bengali accents) that could be out of a soap opera; and every cliché you can imagine. Suhel Seth does his best to be Vijay Mallya (La Martiniere Kolkata has given us such great, great men). Ashoke Pandit also has a cameo, as a hardworking CBI officer. A rich, aristocratic home has a replica of David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" and fake Greek columns are randomly scattered around the dining room.