Sujay Dahake’s Phuntroo makes you want to believe in crazy virtual love
Welcome to Sujay Dahake’s world of being crazy in love. Dahake presents a romance with a twist. The geeky boy loves the beautiful girl. Girl doesn’t love boy. So boy goes ahead and makes an artificial intelligent entity of the girl.
Vira (Madan Deodhar) is not the most likeable hero. An engineering student who is both grumpy and obnoxious, Viru thinks he is far better than his peers. He openly criticises his friends for not being as smart as he is. He calls his friend’s girlfriend fat. His heart pines for Anaya (Ketaki Mategaonkar) whose movements across campus he secretly records through his spectacles. Yes, he is creepy at times. But it’s not head over heels kind of love. He almost always doesn’t agree with Anaya’s worldview.
“I want a girl whom I might have to create,” says Vira to the shock of the canteen owner. And so Vira stumbles upon his deceased professor’s gadget, which he further develops, to create a hologram of Anaya which looks and even talks like her. The second half of the film sees Phuntroo, a well-fashioned, fair, digital clone of Anaya, the one that meets Viru’s intellectual standards. All is well until Phuntroo’s self-awareness begins to backfire as she develops emotional intelligence that makes Viru uneasy and makes him perhaps realise that the imperfect real world is better than the fantastical one that he seeks.
The idea that you can make yourself an ideal partner is absurd in itself. But one shouldn’t expect anything less from the new wave of Marathi filmmakers who are eager to push the creative boundaries. Dahake uses Viru’s anger at being rejected and his ambition to look at the complexities of falling in love with a virtual person. As Viru begins to fall for the unreal Anaya, Viru also wants to make her real. “An engineer is an artist, not a street vendor,” says Viru. But then love cannot be engineer in a lab. It happens naturally.
As soon as Phuntroo deviates from Viru’s configurations, Dahake approaches an interesting territory as Viru is unable to control his own creation. His love makes way for fear. Dahake explores this arc unfortunately only briefly, letting greed and jealousy take over as Viru’s friend Nano (Shivraj Waichal) wants to expose his secret creation and take ownership of the invention.
The National Award-winning filmmaker of Shaala still has the young audiences, to whom this film will most likely appeal, for most part firmly in his grasp. A wry sense of humour runs throughout the sci-fi love story. It’s evident right from the beginning with Mohan Agashe’s professor using the cover of Chetan Bhagat’s Five Point Someone to roll a joint. It’s the kind of scene that makes you want to forgive him for having the book in the library.
There is an Atheist Tea Stall where students can be found smoking and enjoying chai. There are some hilarious moments such as when Phuntroo takes offence when Viru compares her to Tupac or when the hologram is used a give a tribute to horror films. There are songs, most of them set in Viru’s imagination, which unfold in slo-mo and hinder the pace.
It’s a pity that in a film brimming with ideas and characters with wit and firm opinions, Phuntroo takes the predictable route in the last 10 minutes. But then like its hero, the film may not be perfect but it is ingenuous, different and proud, and you can’t help but root for it.