Calendar Girls Review

One Line Review: The dreary tale of small town girls, big dreams and the harsh career journey with Madhur Bhandarkar stamp on it.

Positive Points: Good cinematography, precise editing.

Negative Points: Dull screenplay, non-gripping direction, not-so-good music, dreary character performances.

Plot: The movie kick starts with an introduction of the five lead characters, Mayuri Chauhan (Ruhi Singh) from Rohtak, Nandita Menon (Akanksha Puri) from Hyderabad, Sharon Pinto from Goa (Kyra Dutt), Nazneen Malik (Avani Modi) from Lahore and Paromita Ghosh (Satarupa Pyne) from Kolkata. These five beautiful girls leave their families behind and struggle hard to be the part of the passion project of the flamboyant industrialist Kumar (Suhel Seth). This project is the annual 'Calendar Girls'. On the eventful night of calendar launch in Mauritius, these five beauties are greeted with media people and paparazzi. These girls commence a brand new life from the next morning.

At a social function in Mumbai, Paromita Ghosh comes across her long lost love Pinaki (Keith Sequeira), who is an overambitious person. Paromita goes on loving Pinaki in an unconditional way without knowing his motives. She gets so much crazy in his love that she becomes entangled in a match fixing with cricketers for the affluent cricket league matches. Very soon, Paromita comes in the eyes of Police and her life changes in a bad way.

Pakistani model Nazneen Malik has to return the entire signing amount of her debut movie owing to anti-Pakistan movement. Nazneen sees no option in front of her and becomes a high-society escort. A leading talent management agency signs the stunning Sharon Pinto. But the agency owner Aniruddh Shroff (Rushad Rana) comes up with some nasty and fictitious stories about Sharon. Sharon gives a slap to Aniruddh in front of all the employees due to her self-respect. She confronts a 'ban' from the advertising world. Afterwards, Sharon lands up becoming a television show anchor. This happens after she meets a leading journalist at a book store.

Nandita Menon waves good-bye to the glamorous world to exchange marital vows with Harsh, who is from a rich Narang family from Jodhpur. The other model Mayuri Chauhan leaves no stone unturned to make the best use of her networking skills as well as her social networking skills to ascend the ladder of Bollywood to become an actress. Mayuri gets ready to do a movie with the son of producer and she doesn't mind hobnobbing with the eminent filmmakers from the industry.

The film talks about whether Sharon Pinto turns into a successful television show host, whether Nazneen Malik be able to get out of the escort business and see a new ray of hope in her life, will Nandita Menon achieve true love from her husband Harsh, whether the excellent PR skills of Mayuri Chauhan can create wonder for her by helping her to become a successful starlet and whether Paromita Ghosh will find a way out of cricket scam.

Direction and Other Technical Aspects: With this film, the filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar attempts to showcase the noire and real side of the fashion world. His previous flicks like 'Fashion' and 'Heroine' also revolved around the similar theme. Bhandarkar exposes the life of models post the exposure to success and fame. The story is told in a convincing manner and the filmmaker Bhandarkar has taken a risk of narrating such a complex tale with five newbie. The flick is all about bikini-clad models, gay designers, make-up, contemporary outfits, high profile gossip mongers, melodrama and love-making scenes. However, it offers nothing new to the audience and continues to depict the same old story of darker side of the fashion world, which has been discussed many a times in various movies.

Madhur Bhandarkar makes a special appearance in the film during the scene in which he interacts with the character Mayuri Chauhan and tells her the reason behind making women-centric films. The movie shows the advantages of being active on social media. The content of the flick does not appear powerful to make it gripping enough and it's basically a tale of these models post the calendar shoot. The things seem to be repetitive and dialogues also fail to create wonders. 'Calendar Girls' gives a message that your life is decided by your choices that can either make or break you. The cinematography by Harri Vendaantam is good and Devendra Murdeshwar's editing is great too.

Performances: The performances of the lead actresses like Avani Modi, Akanksha Puri, Kyra Dutt, Satarupa Pyne and Ruhi Singh can't be tagged as great. Their performance seemed artificial at times and the flashy make-up and cheesy dialogues make the things go downhill. Although, the actors like Rohit Roy, Suhel Seth, Keith Sequeira and Atul Parchure didn't have much role to play; all of them performed their parts in a convincing manner.

Music: The music is given by Meet Bros Anjjan and Amal Malik. The theme of the film being an intense topic did not need the music. However, the music was not tuneful and does not seem to have long shelf life.

Final Verdict: You can certainly give a miss to this unimaginative tale that fails to give a dose of entertainment.