The biggest question, among many others that pop up when watching Ab Dilli Dur Nahin, is how did Mahesh Bhatt even end up doing a guest role in a production that is so sloppy and directionless. From the plot to the dialogues and acting, it almost feels like you are watching a poorly put together college play. Add to this, an amateur camerawork dents an already confusing storyline.
Directed by Kamal Chandra, the film follows Abhay Sharma (Imran Zahid), the son of a labourer and farmer who leaves behind his home in Bihar and travels to New Delhi to study for the UPSC examination. The IAS aspirant carries the burden of making his parents proud, for his family has sold their land to help Abhay succeed.
The movie is inspired by the life of Govind Jaiswal, a 2006 batch IAS officer who qualified the examination at the age of 22. Govind’s father was a rickshaw puller and his mother had passed away when he was young.
In the movie, Abhay retells the stories of his own struggles on a talk show hosted by Mahesh Bhatt, who plays a motivational speaker of sorts, after he has become a successful IAS officer. The movie is a flashback of his life, in which he pursues love, feels dejected from not being able to clear the exam multiple times and also gets involved in the wrong crowd who try to extort him. This encapsulation of his journey from being a young village boy to now a reputed IAS officer is filled with confusing sub plots and poor acting.
Abhay falls in love with his landlord’s daughter, Niyati (Shruti Sodhi), whose performance is also far from adequate.
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A confusing story
Whether the director was looking to make a love story or a ‘rags to riches’ trope, is something that one can’t figure even till the end of the film. It feels like the viewer is jumping from one scene to another. There are also a few songs in the film, but nothing worth remembering. There are no inspiring dialogues, which could portray the difficulties faced by a UPSC aspirants.
In a scene, Abhay expresses to Niyati how disappointed he feels because of reservation quota in such exams. But the writing is so rushed that Niyati is seen brushing it off casually and the duo veer off from that thought and start performing some kind of love-scene—in a play that Niyati is acting in.
All in all, the movie doesn’t do justice to how a UPSC aspirant’s life looks like, but doesn’t even offer any kind of comical relief or strong storytelling to make up for it.
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)