Movie Review: Aamras

Aamras is an ode to teenage friendship: bonding, crushes, heartbreaks, jealousies, everything a blend of sweet and sour.

Film: Aamras (Comedy, Drama)
Cast: Vega Tamotia, Ntsha Bhardwaj, Maanvi Gagroo, Anchal Sabarwal, Zarina Wahab
Director: Rupali Guha
Duration: About one hour and 45 minutes

There's Pari, the spoilt rich glamgirl, Rakhi, the spunky and spitfire Punjabi kudi, Jiya who's sweet and subdued, and Sanya, attractive and confident. Despite their different personalities and class differences - Jiya comes from the middle-class - the four girls are 'friends forever'. Discussing push-up bras, smoking during a school trip, breaking a car's windscreen - they do everything together.

But all relationships have those narrow crevices where negative energy thrives. The girls and their lives are no exception. Class, as Karl Marx saw it, affects every aspect of our life. To director Rupali Guha's credit, she doesn't brush this aspect aside.

Despite a wonderful opening track sung by Kailash Kher, Chhote chhote pairon ke tale raste bade, Aamras has a rather hammy opening 15 minutes. But soon Guha gets her bearings right. And though the film occasionally feels like a Banegi Apni Baat type of tv serial, it develops a sweet tempo and tenor of its own.

It has sensitivity too: that Jiya has a hearing problem shows how new Bollywood is willing to make progressive moves within the limits of commercial cinema. But the Parimal Tripathi gag - a character who dresses the same way as Dharmendra in Chupke Chupke - doesn't work.

The entire cast does fine: Maanvi Gagroo as Rakhi and Vikram Kapadia as her father being the stand-out performers. Pre-teens and early teens will surely find Aamras as refreshing as nimboo-pani.