Island City Movie Review: Life In A Metro

Over the years, Mumbai has been a muse for many filmmakers- from Ram Gopal Varma to Kiran Rao, everyone has interpreted Mumbai in his/her own way and the latest filmmaker to join the bandwagon is Ruchika Oberoi.

Island City is a set of three stories set in Mumbai and dealing with elements like corporate culture, loneliness, isolation and the attachment to daily soaps and how the characters on the screen can sometimes end up being closer than actual family members.

The first story is about Suyash Chaturvedi (Vinay Pathak), a middle-aged corporate drone, who lives a dreary existence until his life is changed when he gets selected by the 'Fun Committee' of his company to have a mandatory day off and have fun. How this 'Fun Day' ends up being a bad day at work for Chaturvedi's colleagues and boss, forms the rest of the plot.

The second story is about a middle-class family comprising woman Sarita (Amruta Subhash), whose husband and the sole earner has been injured in an incident related to the previous story. When the family decides to get a new TV, the idiot box ends up being the sole source of solace and hope for the entire family.

The third story is about a woman Aarti (Tannishtha Chatterjee) from a middle-class Gujarati family, who is engaged to a so called 'suitable boy' she doesn't love (Chandan Roy Sanyal). Aarti finds fresh hope for love when she starts getting love letters from an anonymous admirer and decides to part ways with her loud-mouthed and crass fiancé.

Packed with powerful performers like Vinay Pathak, Amruta Subhash, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Chandan Roy Sanyal, Island City deals with the gritty reality of the city beneath its shimmering façade. Mumbai may be called the City of Dreams, but the city is also infamous for the brutal struggle everyone undergoes for moments of happiness or even peace and the film has brought this out quite beautifully. The daily struggle for survival and the hunger for stealing a few moments for yourself despite the demands of the city is something that we all are aware of and Island City portrays it beautifully.

On the flip side, the first and the third story flirts with lack of logic (we are not going to elaborate more because it will give away the plot points), while the second story about the family seeking solace in a TV soap is something that we all will identify with and relate to. Using humour to convey a serious point is always a risky proposition, but Oberoi has done it with admirable ease. The pace also is quite sluggish and a pacy narrative would have worked wonders for the film.

Mind you, Island City is not a hard-core commercial film, but if you keep an open mind, it would certainly make for a relatable tale.