Gul Panag wedding: looking at Turning 30

Turning 30

Reviewed by Sab Khan

A lady Devdas in a Hindi film? It all felt bizarre. But thankfully, Turning 30 isn't a complete mess. Director Alankrita Shrivastava has taken the bold and the beautiful step in putting up a female oriented film but it seems like the overall making of the movie didn’t end up becoming what it was supposed to.

The movie is about Naina (Gul Panag), as she is turning to 30, who has just been broken up with her boyfriend Rishabh (Siddharth Makkar) and throughout the movie she has been trying to overcome the shock which is quite depressing for her. In the beginning, I related it to Sex and the City but no, not at all, this is more of Bridget Jones Diary. Naina tries everything to get  Rishabh back in her life, who in turn has moved on with a younger and prettier woman. And Rishabh is only part of her problems as her boss fired her from her job for no apparent reason.

Enter Jai (Purab Kohli) who is supposed to be a ray of hope for Naina but adds to her confusion. Overtly confused, as an audience I was awaiting Naina’s final decision when the movie becomes lengthy, drab and dragged. And the wait ends simple when Naina's book gets published, she becomes famous and Rishabh comes crying back in the last bit of the film.

Packaged and marketed as a new age chick flick with a lot of oomph and style, Turning 30 failed to impress me completely. If it was trying to show modern women, it should have shown Naina moving on and not looking back rather than her pining for her love. Gul Panag suits the character well, but her bike wedding is something that comes closer to  the concept of a "modern woman".

Alankrita did her best to come up with female jargons and Panag tried her level best to eliminate the monotones that are spread across the film. I would not give a very high recommendation but ah, yes, if you have ample time, then go for it.

Rating: 2/5