Inspired by a Sharad Joshi article, the film is about an unexpected guest who refuses to go away, always an interesting premise for chaos. Unfortunately this premise never really gets its full play in Atithi, as the screenplay remains tepid, and the jokes tedious.
Ajay Devgn plays a struggling film writer, while Konkona plays his architect wife, a nicely mismatched couple as real married people often are. They stay with their school going son in a flat in Mumbai, leading a humdrum life, until one day Lambodar chacha (Paresh Rawal), lands up uninvited from Gorakhpur. The innocent couple take in the rustic looking chacha and he instantly starts driving them mad. First, he takes over their bedroom, forcing them to sleep outside. He wants fresh vegetarian food everyday, preferably cooked by the wife. He gargles loudly at 6 am in the morning, before hanging his kuchchas to dry. Then he chases the maid around the flat, pointing out dust spots she has missed, until she quits.
Worst of all, chachaji burps and farts at will, clearly a high point of the script, since its repeated ad nauseum. So you have entire scenes and song sequences where chachaji is farting while Konkona chases him with a room freshener, nose crinkled in disgust, just like the audience. Ugh, what a waste of fine talent. For long now, Bollywood and its audiences have mindlessly encouraged slaps and farts on screen, while cuddling and kissing is purely taboo. This has led to a nation of fat people with bad toilet training who seem unable to flirt with the opposite gender. Time we changed track.
However, if you think the above is funny, then you may well like the ridiculous plotting that follows, involving a film director (Satish Kaushik) for whom Devgn is writing the script, and a bhai who is the producer. On the mahurat day, chachaji manages to destroy a 50 lakh set, so Devgn is dropped from the film. As chachaji becomes popular with the locals, since he sings bhajans and solves back problems with a kick, the couple think up mad schemes to get rid of him. Of course, asking him to leave is considered rude in this politically correct, virtuous script. So, they get an actor friend to make a fake emergency call, except that chachaji gets him arrested by the cops. Along the way chachaji touches many lives, sob, until it’s finally revealed that he actually came to the wrong house, as Devgn was never ever related to him. Barring Paresh Rawal, who tends to get grating, the other actors put in an average performance. Though the film is shot and produced beautifully it never really takes off, but if you want to see it, be my guest.
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