Set mostly in 1970s Darjeeling, the film follows Barfi, a deaf-mute man (played astonishingly well by Ranbir Kapoor) who is the town prankster and seems to be perpetually on the run from the police. One day he runs into Shruti Ghosh (Ileana D'Cruz), an engaged woman due to be married in three months, and falls for her. The feeling is mutual, though she won't admit it right away, and the two become fast friends. However, when push comes to shove, Shruti can't give up everything for Barfi, so she gets married and moves away to Kolkata. Meanwhile, Barfi's father is seriously ill and requires expensive treatment. Desperate to scrape up the cash, Barfi tries a variety of schemes, including robbing a bank, but finally hits upon the idea of kidnapping Jhilmil Chatterjee. Barfi's father worked for the Chatterjees as a chauffeur, so Barfi and Jhilmil are childhood friends. Also, Jhilmil is severely autistic (portrayed with a great deal of restraint and sensitivity by Priyanka Chopra), which makes kidnapping her a somewhat difficult enterprise.
That might seem like enough story to be getting on with, but there are all manner of unnecessary complications, including the decision to tell this entire story through a series of flashbacks and flashforwards that make it impossible to keep the timeline straight. I spent most of my time being extremely confused as to which flashback I was currently watching and sorting out what events had already unfolded or were about to transpire. At two and a half hours, the movie is entirely too long; it has a strong finish, but by the time you get there, you're too exasperated to care.
However, the movie does have a wonderful aesthetic. Every frame is suffused with light and color, with Darjeeling looking like something out of a fairytale. And the acting is phenomenal, with Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra playing their differently-abled characters with nuance and understanding. It seems like writer-director Anurag Basu got carried away by the look and feel of the movie and in typical Bollywood fashion decided that more is better. Ergo the convoluted plot, neverending chases sequences through the beautiful streets and fields of Darjeeling, and countless nods to the work of Chaplin or Keaton in the silent-movie era. The movie's soundtrack is delightful and essential to a movie with so little dialogue, but the fact that it is a complete rip-off of the Amelie soundtrack cannot be denied. There's enough variation to hopefully avoid a lawsuit (let's hope the Oscar committee sees it that way at least) and I was willing to let it slide until a typewriter was incorporated into the background score in such a blatant copy of "Pas Si Simple" that I had to protest.
Barfi!'s selection as an Oscar entry is a very obvious ploy to cater to Oscar tastes. Every cynic knows that an actor has a good shot at winning an Academy Award if they're playing a disabled person, a real-life figure, or a Nazi. Throw in the fact that the silent film, The Artist, won Best Picture last year, and you can see why Bollywood thought Barfi! would be a shoo-in. I can't deny the acting is Oscar-worthy, but the execution certainly isn't. So next year, I hope Bollywood decides to laud a movie that features not only great performances but also realizes that the true art of moviemaking lies in telling a great story.
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