JACQUELINE I AM COMING | 18 October, 2019

M.D. Production’s Jacqueline I Am Comingis the love story of a middle-aged Hindu man and his much younger Christian wife.

Kashi Tiwari (Raghubir Yadav) is a loner and lives with his uncle and aunt. He is well past the marriageable age. One day, he happens to go to the church with a friend. He sees Jacqueline (Diiva Dhanoya) there and falls in love with her. He marries her against the wishes of his uncle and aunt. Kashi leaves his uncle’s house and lives with wife Jacqueline. He is aware that she is prone to getting fits but it is only after marriage, when she gets an attack of a fit, that the doctor tells Kashi, Jacqueline’s illness is mental in nature. In that episode, Jacqueline, who was pregnant, has a miscarriage. The doctor also warns them that another pregnancy could be dangerous. Probably depressed by this fact, Jacqueline’s condition keeps deteriorating till she has to be admitted to a mental asylum.

Weeks pass by. Kashi now wants to take Jacqueline back home but the hospital authorities will not allow him to do so as they don’t agree with his theory that she is alright now. Ultimately, Kashi smuggles Jacqueline out of the mental asylum and lives with her in hiding. The hospital authorities get wind of his new abode and capture his wife to take her back to the asylum. What happens thereafter?

Pinku Dubey’s story and screenplay are so half-baked that they don’t create half the desired impact. Kashi is aware of Jacqueline’s fits episodes but is shown to be not even bothered to find out more before tying the knot with her. The entire chapter of Kashi fighting with the mental asylum people to discharge Jacqueline is so shoddily written that instead of one’s sympathy going to Kashi, one gets irritated at him. Likewise, the way the hospital authorities behave, it would seem as if they were earning lakhs of rupees from Jacqueline’s continued hospitalisation. Of course, that can’t be true because Kashi is a lower middle-class man. The story and screenplay are so terribly penned that the audience experiences zero emotions and feels absolutely no empathy towards the characters. It would not be incorrect to say that the story and screenplay are the work of a novice. The tracks of Kashi’s friends is silly, to say the least. The entire sequence of the friends trying to catch hold of Kashi in the beginning makes one cringe in his seat. In a drama of this kind, an emotional connect is what matters the most but in this case, the connect is conspicuous by its absence. All in all, the story and screenplay are terrible. Pinku Dubey’s dialogues are no better and completely fail to impress.

Raghubir Yadav’s acting is too ordinary to really create an impact. He goes through his role with almost the same fixed expression. Diiva Dhanoya is an expressionless girl. She is barely average as Jacqueline. Shakti Kumar appears less like a doctor and more like anything else in the world. Kiran Patil (as Keshav) is poor. Jeetu Samraat (as Kamal) fails to make any mark. Sushil Parwana is dull as Govind chacha. Mukesh Gakkhar is too ordinary to be true in the role of Jacqueline’s father. Brijesh Karnwal (as boss Vikram), Rajesh Mishra (as Vermaji), Vinod Goswami (as office peon Chhedilal), Suhagmal Maran (as Shuklaji), Amar Anand (as Peter), Santosh Sagar and Nilesh (both as priests in the church), C.P. Bhatt (as security head Raman), Vandana Asthana (as the head nurse), Sanjay Raraiya (as the hospital security man), Sayed Mubin (as the physician), Pinku Dubey (as the doctor), Dr. Ghanshyam Singh Rajput (as the asylum trustee), Sumanlata Sharma (as Keshav’s wife), Minakshi Nigam (as Govind chacha’s wife), Prince Bharti (as Bansi) and the others lend miserable support.

Banty Dubey’s direction is terribly weak. He seems to not know even the basics of film direction. Monty Sharma’s music is dull. Saravanan Elavarasu’s cinematography is ordinary. Art direction (by Prem Chand Mahto) is weak. Sachin Kunal’s editing is loose.

On the whole, Jacqueline I Am Coming is such a disgraceful attempt that it will be rejected — totally, completely.

Released on 18-10-’19 at PVR Malad (daily 1 show) of Bombay thru PVR Vkaao. Publicity & opening: very poor. …….Also released all over.