Eventually, if you sit through the ordeal of watching Rajkummar Rao romance the stunning Ms Rai Bachcchan in an abandoned industrial factory with only her pet dog for company, Fanney Khan is a heartwarming ode to life, Lata Mangeshkar, Mohd Rafi and Sheila Ki Jawani. Effervescent and emotional, it is an effective antidote to the pain of existence.

But in a film that glides in and out of the make-believe, it is no big deal if the love story, which anyways runs parallel to the main narrative track of the film, flirts with the unreal. Isn’t that what cinematic plots hinging on the realization of impossible dreams are supposed to be? Fanney Khan is that – and more. Embrace it. It will do no harm.

The film though, manages to have a light-hearted vibe and some of the scenes are genuinely funny. The music is also pretty hummable. I found myself almost dancing to Fu Bai Fu. And Acche Din by Amit Trivedi is a good spin on the famous phrase used cleverly to comment on Fanney Khan’s financial situation.

But overall Fanney Khan lacks depth or purpose.

A weak script with some directing inconsistencies, Fanney Khan had room to be an enjoyable comedy or satire. Instead it careened towards over-the-top melodrama with debatable messaging.

The problem lies with the execution — as a viewer, there are so many questions that come to your mind that 20 minutes into the film, you stop caring about the proceedings

Fanney Khan is in the same space as Tumhari Sulu and Secret Superstar where starry-eyed aspiration and gullible hearts of gold go but nowhere as grounded in reality.

Fanney has little to offer. But if you’re the sort who doesn’t complain, please be my guest.

Last year we had Advait Chandan’s Secret Superstar, on a similar theme of trying to make it big in the world of music. Despite its share of naïveté and narrative contrivances it was able to forge a connect with the audience with its emotional authenticity and freshness. Fanney Khan, unfortunately, leaves one cold.

The worst thing about this film is no connect between characters even as Kapoor tries hard to breathe life into his.

Everything ends well for everyone, strike one for melodrama. What begins as a slice-of-life film about following your dreams ends as a fairytale. It is charming but not rooted in reality. Life isn’t that forgiving; but perhaps the audiences will be.

Anil Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai-Starrer is a Muddled Mess of a Film…

If only the director had resisted the urge to insert cliched characters and reduced the run time, “Fanney Khan” would have been an out-and-out winner.

A film starring a bunch of our top star-actors can be so off the mark is a sobering, dismal thought: this Anil Kapoor-Aishwarya Rai-Rajkummar Rao concoction, based on a Belgian film Everybody’s Famous, is unbelievably awful.

Nobody seems to have told the makers that the script is daft enough to ensure that Race 3 wasn’t the worst film of Anil Kapoor’s year

Overall, ‘Fanney Khan’ is a star studded musical that starts on a high note and has its moments of glory. It shows how parents live their dreams through children.

It does strike a few wrong chords to culminate into an emotional yet convenient climax. However, the showstopper is clearly Anil Kapoor with a knockout performance that makes ‘Fanney Khan’ worth a watch.