Situational comedy meets slapstick

Manpriya Singh 

Period dramas have their own vocabulary; which if spelt correctly translates into good vibes. Yaare Ve sets out to achieve just those vibes and all the other templates that we predominantly saw in Amrinder Gill-starrer Angrez. The film that first put pre-Partition era in Pollywood spotlight (what with its mud houses, hamlets rather than villages, props like brass and copper utensils). Yaara Ve obediently does all that’s expected of a Punjabi film set in that era and tells us the story of three friends against the beautiful but long lost villagescapes. 

Buta (played by Gagan Kokri), Neza (that’s Yuvraj Hans) and Kishan (Raghveer Boli) truly represent what today’s term BFFs is all about. Belonging to different communities and yet standing with each other through thick and thin. Raghveer Boli shows spark, Yuvraj Singh does a good job as usual and Gagan Kokri has improved his game since his last film Latu. So far, so good.

Supporting the well played but poorly etched characters of the three friends is the stellar cast that brings together all the formidable names of Punjabi cinema under one roof. Yograj Singh as Buta’s bapu, Nirmal Rishi as the vaddi bebe whom the entire village fears, Bobbi Dhaliwal, Sardar Sohi, BN Sharma is the village hakim, Rana Jung Bahadur is the Musim halwai. 

With a cast like that how can the script go wrong? Yet it does. The only leeway we are tempted to give is in the form of intention. Different communities live in perfect harmony, the harmony that’s heart-warming and not the utopian, almost irritating and unconvincing ring-a-roses that families in Sooraj Barjatya films do. There’s a scene that introduces today’s generation to the lost art of dhadi-jatha music. 

The captain Rakesh Mehta paid attention to each frame in the picture but not each scene, which overplays. In the process situational comedy meets slapstick and scenes like a cycle being seen by the village for the first time plays funnier in the head than in the film. 

By interval all that’s happened is that every character has been introduced to the audience with a clear understanding of the giant family tree of the village that is at play. One more thing, Buta has managed to win a wrestling match to prove his love for his lady (Monica Gill blushes at the right times and delivers only one memorable dialogue till interval which is ‘how no one really cares to ask the girl whom she wants to marry’). Post interval, the predictability takes over the pain of Partition and the feelings evoked (either of the characters or the audience) are not that strong. Will it stand the test of time? Unlikely.