Jayeshbhai Jordaar Review: An irrepressible Jayeshbhai Jordaar plays with continuous brilliance. Ranveer Singh isn’t a hunk who struts around the village attracting unwanted attention. He is, in fact, the polar opposite. He has a knack for blending into the background.
Director: Divyang Thakkar Cast: Ranveer Singh, Shalini Pandey, Boman Irani, Jia Vaidya, Ratna Pathak Shah
Two and a half out of five stars (out of 5)
It would have been an outright winner if Jayeshbhai Jordaar had lived up to the claim made by the second word of the title. It’s refreshing to see a male protagonist in a Hindi film who doesn’t believe he has to be a big-talking lout to be a man at a time when Bollywood is facing an onslaught of loud, unabashed, testosterone-driven heroes from a recent spate of Southern superhits.
The eponymous hero of Jayeshbhai Jordaar isn’t a stud prancing around the countryside calling constant attention to himself, as played by an irrepressible Ranveer Singh. He is, in fact, the polar opposite. He has a knack for blending into the background.
In front of his regressive father, the village headman (Boman Irani), Jayesh scarcely raises his voice, who throws his weight around without a peep of protest from his meet son. Jayesh is married, has a daughter, and is constantly pressured by his parents to have a boy child.
Siddhi (Jia Vaidya), Jayesh’s nine-year-old daughter, begs him to intervene when things go terribly bad for her and her parents. When the film begins, Jayesh’s wife Mudra (Shalini Pandey), who has had six abortions due to unlawful sex determination tests, is pregnant once more. This time, the sarpanch demands that she bear a male heir.
Despite Ranveer Singh’s unwaveringly spot-on diction and demeanour, Jayeshbhai Jordaar lacks bite as a sharp satire on patriarchy and superstition. The screenplay by Divyang Thakkar, a first-time director, is only occasionally successful in hitting punches that matter.
It includes a Haryana village devoid of men. The place is full of hot wrestlers who are all single. A man who had purchased a bride from Bengal for two lakh rupees is introduced in another scenario. Subtlety isn’t a strong suit in this flick.
The major issue with this Yash Raj Films movie is its wildly inconsistent pitching. It tries to be funny while confronting a deadly serious issue in one scene, then becomes solemn and preachy in the next. It nearly appears to be the work of two scriptwriters at odds with one another.
It’s difficult to tell if Jayeshbhai Jordaar is attempting to be flat out absurdist or simply over-the-top melodramatic in the manner of a traditional Hindi potboiler. It falls flat when it strays into the humorous. And its emotive themes, which are mostly tossed into the mix in the second half, aren’t strong enough to counteract the darker portions.
To return to the sarpanch’s mild-mannered kid, he is the only character that sticks out in the picture. This isn’t just due to Ranveer Singh’s powerful performance in the film. The other characters are simply not given enough consideration and room in the script, leaving them in a difficult-to-hide limbo.
Jayeshbhai Jordaar is entirely Ranveer Singh, therefore it’s more Jayeshbhai than jordaar. It frequently loses its power. Despite the undeniable relevancy of the ideals that the picture seeks to market, the load that the hero is asked to carry on his shoulders is flaky and weak in its foundation.