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Feature Name: Freddy
Cast: Kartik Aaryan, Alaya F, Karan A. Pandit, Sajjad Delfrooz, Jeniffer Piccinato, Harshika Kewalramani, Tripti Agarwal
Directed by: Shashanka Ghosh
Runtime: 2hr 4min
Freddy story revolves the dull life of dentist Freddy Ginwala who is lonely, desperate, socially awkward, and comes from a troubled home. His only companions are his grandmother, and a tortoise named Hardy.
Besides his day job as a dentist, and a hobby of painting toy planes, the other activity that runs Freddy’s life is him meeting potential suitors from matrimonial sites.
He meets with girls at the same Café Blue and orders his staple falooda. And every single time, women find him off-putting for his socially awkward nature, and even borderline creepy.
But there comes a dawn in Freddy’s gloomy life when he meets Kainaaz Irani at a wedding and its attraction at first sight.
We don’t really get to see a natural romance blossoming between the two, and after some stalking and conversations with Kainaaz, who comes in for a tooth extraction, Freddy gets to know about her abusive husband Rustom Irani.
The two, who are now lovers, hatch a plan to kill Rustom. Soon, Freddy is sucked into a quagmire where things are not what it seems to be.
Shashanka Ghosh’s direction is the high point of this film. The way he swings the audience in between the two lead characters, making you guess till the very end as to who will finally end up being victorious, is superb.
Parveez Shaikh’s writing looks predictable at the start considering it looks like a mundane love story. But the moment the second half begins, the writing picks pace and Shaikh has filled it with numerous twists and turns which actually help accentuate the story.
Talking about the performances, Kartik Aaryan is finally out of his comfort zone. He is no longer the chocolatey boy-next-door kind of guy whom every girl is falling head over heels for. On the contrary, he has put on weight, closed the lid on his characteristic smile, dumbed down his hairdo, and above all, lost all the oodles of confidence to become a shy introverted dentist. While the change is welcome, and he does do well also, in some parts, it somewhat feels like the inner sinister in his character gets lesser priority and Kartik Aaryan tries to push himself a bit too much to get that perfect. Sadly, it ends up being a bit too forced and unnatural. But overall, it’s great to see Kartik Aaryan try something strikingly different, finally.
Alaya F, being just her second film, has done a decent job. She comes from a Parsi background and therefore gets the nuances of the character much better than Kartik Aaryan gets. She doesn’t have to put on a fake Parsi accent to make the character look believable. To add to that, she also has put a lot of effort into making the character’s transition perfect from a damsel in distress to a heartless cold-blooded woman.
The numerous twists and turns in the plot are surely something that you would love. We with all our heart give the film three and a half stars. One can enjoy the film over this weekend.
