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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.