Phalke Films Entertainment’s ILU ILU 1998 (Marathi) is a story about infatuation.
Aniket Surve (Nishant Bhavsar) is infatuated with his teacher, Madhuri Pinto (Elli AvrRam). He thinks, it is love. There is another romantic track of Aniket’s elder brother, Ashish (Gaurav Kalushte), and Nisha (Ankita Lande). There is still another track of a one-sided love affair between Aniket’s father, Milind Surve (Shrikant Yadav), and Hema (Mira Jagannath). Coming back to Aniket’s infatuation with Madhuri Pinto madam, it takes a serious turn when her sketch is found in the school toilet, with an indecent caption. What happens to the three love stories?
Nitin Vijay Supekar has written a story which has been stretched beyond imagination. His screenplay looks one of convenience. It fails to really engage the viewers because the infatuation angle stops making sense after a point of time. Nitin Vijay Supekar’s dialogues are good.
Nishant Bhavsar acts ably as Aniket Surve. Elli AvrRam looks very pretty and performs well as Madhuri Pinto Madam. Shrikant Yadav provides fine support as Aniket’s father, Milind Surve. Veena Jamkar is okay as Aniket’s mother, Sangeeta Surve. Mira Jagannath is so-so as Hema. Gaurav Kalushte makes a fair mark as Aniket’s brother, Ashish Surve. Ankita Lande looks beautiful and also acts nicely as Nisha. Sidhesh Lingayat is entertaining as Aniket’s friend, Rakshas. Arya Kakde is adequate as Aniket’s friend, Joshi. Aroha Welankar is alright as the grown-up Aniket Surve. Yash Sanas is ordinary as Ashish’s friend, Chinkya. Soham Kalokhe lends routine support as Ashish’s friend, Lalya. Rajwardhan Dusane delivers a routine performance in the role of Jagya. Ananda Karekar is average as PT teacher Pawar. Kamlakar Satpute (as Jadhav), Vanita Kharat (as Jadhav’s wife), Anil Chitre (as Nisha’s father), Pradeep Patwardhan (as the school principal), and Vikas Hande (as Madhuri Pinto madam’s father) do as desired.
Ajinkya Bapu Phalke’s direction is average. Music (by Rohit Nagbhide and Vijay Gavande) is fairly nice. Hasane tujhe is a well-tuned song while Ilu Ilu and Gulabi gulabi are okay. Lyrics (Vaibhav Joshi, Prashant Madpuwar and Vaibhav Deshmukh) are quite okay. Sujit Kumar’s choreography is above average. Vijay Narayan Gavande’s background music is appealing. Yogesh Koli’s cinematography is alright. Yogesh Ingale’s production designing is okay. Nilesh Rathod’s editing is reasonably sharp.
On the whole, ILU ILU 1998 is too routine to make a mark at the turnstiles.
Released on 31-1-’25 at Metro Inox (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay thru Filmastra Studios. Publicity: okay. Opening: weak.
