RSVP and Roy Kapur Films’ Pihu is the story of a two-and-a-half-year-old girl who is alone in her house for more than an entire day.
Pihu (Myra Vishwakarma) is two-and-a-half years old and lives with her parents in a flat in a high-rise building. Her father has had a fight with her mother and has gone to Calcutta for a day. Unknown to the little one, her mother, tired of the regular fights, has committed suicide by consuming sleeping pills. The father has, by mistake, kept the iron switch on and he keeps telephoning his wife to ask her to switch it off.
Pihu often answers the telephone calls of her dad as also of others who call on the mother’s cell phone but since she is not even three years old, she is unable to convey the scene which, in any case, even she doesn’t understand.
Pihu feels hungry and sleepy at different points of time, goes to the toilet to relieve herself, and even climbs the railings of her balcony, hanging precariously on her balcony ledge. What happens finally is revealed in the climax.
Vinod Kapri has written the story of a little girl who is alone at home, unaware that her mother is no more. Although the subject has novelty, there are two points which go against the film – firstly, it is very depressing, and secondly, it gets monotonous and repetitive after a while. Vinod Kapri’s screenplay, with additional screenplay by Abhishek Sharma and Myra Vishwakarma (because the filmmaker has let the little girl do what she would do in normal circumstances if the cameras weren’t around her), is engaging but only upto a point. After a while, the screenplay appears to be stretched too much. Yes, there are moments where the audiences miss a heartbeat or two but even such scary moments don’t compensate for the depression that sets in and the repetitiveness. Vinod Kapri’s dialogues are natural.
Baby Myra Vishwakarma is absolutely splendid in Pihu’s role. She is supremely natural – and this, also because she may not even have understood that her actions were being captured on camera. Other actors have done voice acting and they’re all very effective.
Vinod Kapri’s direction is good. He needs to be lauded for making an entire film with just one character – a two-and-a-half-year-old girl – in the cast. Vishal Khurana’s background music is decent. Yogesh Jani’s camerawork is very good. Ashim Chakraborty’s production designing is appropriate. Editing (by Irene Dhar Malik, Sheeba Sehgal and Archit Rastogi) is quite sharp.
On the whole, Pihu is an experimental film but since it is more depressing than entertaining, it will not make any mark at the box-office despite getting critical acclaim.
Released on 16-11-’18 at Regal (daily 1 show) and other cinemas of Bombay by RSVP. Publicity: fair. Opening: weak. …….Also released all over. Opening was frighteningly dull everywhere.