Batti Gul Meter Chalu: a Movie of Two Halves

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Image result for Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Batti Gul Meter Chalu
Director: Shree Narayan Singh
Writer:  Vipul K Rawal
Stars: Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, Divyendu Sharma, Yami Gautam
Genre: Comedy/ Drama
Rating: 3/5
Batti Gul Meter Chalu is a story of two halves: the first half tries its absolute best to not let the audience immerse into the movie with its more than necessary light heartedness. In addition to this, the first half is also marred by the improper use of the local Uttarkhand dialect. Of course I’m no expert, in fact, it was the very first time I was hearing the dialect and may be this contributed to the odd experience. Despite my lack of expertise what I can say for certain is that the unnecessary repetition of certain words by all the characters didn’t allow me to immerse into the movie. The gap between the screen and audience stood firmly.
 After the interval, however, the movie finds its footing as it gets a bit more serious both in tone and plot. The second half, thankfully, avoids the distracting joviality that was so dominant in the first half. The second have retains all the redeeming features of the first half and adds to it the much needed heft. As opposed to the first half the movie has just the right amount of light hearted moments as the story acquires a more serious tone.
As for the plot, the movie follows the love triangle, because what is Bollywood film without love story and its complications. Here, the love story is used as a tool to drive the plot forward. The complication is what makes the movie tackle the core issue i.e. the issue of power cut and Electricity Company’s unaccountability. In short, quoting from the official synopsis, “The film tells the story of inflated electricity bills in rural India…”.
All in all, Batti Gul Meter Chalu is a movie with a message and with good intentions. Shahid Kapoor deserves a special mention for an amazing performance despite the movie’s shortcomings. If a movie could be judged entirely on the basis of the last hour or so, this is a brilliant movie. However, since that is far from the case the first half does its fair share  of damage to the overall experience. But the way the second half recovers compels me to not give this movie a bad rating.



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