One By Two Review

One Line Review: A story of two young people struggling with life issues, nauseatingly stretched a bit too long.

Positive Points: Direction is relevant to the plot, good cinematography, fresh youthful music.

Negative Points: A few dull witted and crass dialogues, unnecessarily overstretched story, incoherence in protagonist character performance, toilet humor that fails to fit in.

Plot: Samara Patel (Preeti Desai), who lives with her mother (Lillete Dubey), is an aspiring professional dancer who wants to make it big. On the other hand, Amit Sharma (Abhay Deol) is an I.T professional who is going through a heartbreak after his girlfriend dumped him, is living with a bottled up frustration and grief, albeit with two office buddies who are always there to share his problems.

However, a day comes when their lives intersect and also affect each other to an extent. On one hand, where Samara is struggling to be one of the best dancers in the country, she also has to deal with her mother's drinking problem which is a result of her father abandoning her mother. Amit's life is characterized by the post breakup sadness which he tries to suppress and a bit controlling mother (Rati Agnihotri) who is constantly pestering him to get married. Amit also takes advice from his police inspector uncle (Darshan Jariwala), who is also an avid poet by hobby.

Both of them are unaware of the fact that their lives are indirectly affected by each other and also both of them are going through tough conditions in their lives.

Direction And Other Technical Aspects: The film is basically a depiction of two urban professionals who are undergoing stress as they are having to deal with issues in their lives. Also, in a way, their lives are somewhere connected and affect each other. However, the whole base plot is spoiled badly with poor dialogues with banally idiotic jokes peppered in between. Abhay Deol's toilet humor with paneer induced flatulence is totally misplaced and evokes only a little disgust.

The direction is however in place with respect to the sequence of the events, while cinematography isn't bad at all and helps to carry the film well.

Coming to the script, one may wonder, why do the characters don't show any strong backlash to the persons who are responsible for their emotional turmoil.

Performances: There is a lack of convincing performance from the protagonists as they exhibit contradictory emotions. One may even think if the characters are somewhat bipolar. In the first half of the movie, the characters are somewhat happy despite their problems; however the later half shows them disproportionately frustrated and angry.

In addition, there is a strong lack of much needed chemistry between the protagonists. Peripheral characters just do the job and float the film through its two and a half hours of screening.

Music: One shouldn't expect much from the film's music, but it won't be unfair to say that this a fresh genre of youth music, that one may find differently groovy. "I'm Just Pakaoed" sung by Siddharth Mahadevan is a rock song that reflects sudden release of bottled up frustration. "Kaboom" sung by Anushka Manchanda isn't much groovier either, but is somewhat catchy and likeable. The rest of the songs on the list aren't much of a musical treat.

Final verdict: 'One By Two' is an unsuccessful attempt to show the life stories of two young Mumbai professionals, which cross and subsequently affect each other. The base plot seems to be good; however the film is spoiled by banal dialogues, poor humor, unconvincing character performances and of course a rubber like over-stretched storyline.