Dabba of Dreams. Review on Stanley Ka Dabba

Okay, there's a story, and there's a story-teller, who tries to tell you a story slowly slowly, creating a suspense, and a excitement, charm, even if that story is a simple one, the same feeling is here with this movie, and the movie is told in a way, as a grandmother is telling her grandchildren some story. That's the feel, but somehow something was missed, but yes, I can say that for once, you can watch the movie (on CD/DVD).

The movie is written, directed and produced by Amole Gupte (Bhope Bhau of Kaminey), and is one simple story of nani-dadi types, and he tried his best to narrate the story in the same manner, but somehow, the movie lost its commercialization value, and hanged in between of art and commercial movie types. Its a small movie, but still looked a bit boring, because there's not much in the story to cover. Story tells about a boy named Stanley (Partho) and his school gang, who brought and shared their tiffin boxes during recess time. Stanley never brought a tiffin-box, but other friends of him share their tiffins with him, and there's a wicked teacher Babubhai Verma (Amole Gupte), who always thought of eating dabbas of these students, he also never brought tiffin-box, and always hungry for other tiffins' whether its children or fellow-teachers. In the end Stanley teaches him his value, by a very simple action, which you can find out while watching the movie.

So, all-in-all, a very simple plot, and a small movie, but the screenplay did play the spoilpart, may be simple story does not have much to cover, but it left the viewers on borders of liking and dislikings. The bachcha gang was awesome, especially Partho, he acted like a child with some kind of mental disability (acted like one), but he is a genious just like Ishaan Nadkishore Awasthi. He is the brilliant child of class, doing all practical things, remembering everything, and good in dance/extra-curricular activities too. Partho managed it really well, then comes Numan Sheikh as Aman Mehra, the rich boy, who is very good at heart and sharing his big tiffins with his school-mates, and Numan did the role quite well. After watching this movie, one can easily compare the TZP movie and this one - Quite same kind of basic plot, plus, the lead character acted quite similar, there are two main boy characters in both the movies, here also there is a competition during the 2nd half quite similar to TZP, although its not covered much. Amol Gupte was the third guy I should mention in acting department, he has the thing, which can easily be compared with the artist having a drama stage level background, he looks perfectly in a shabby looking hindi teacher, who always looks for dabbas more than his course. Feel is what got points here for me, but then there are many loopholes, this small movie is boring to a bit, alongwith all other cast acting as teachers, some are acting normal, and some didn't looked normal, like weird-acting Divya Jagdale. Nothing much given to good actors like Raj Zutshi, Aditya Lakhia. Divya Dutta as children-loving teacher is okay, although all the characters are reel-life presentation of real-life teachers, but somehow, this characterization can be improved. I must say that an innocent attempt, but it could have been better. Nothing much in music-lyrics department. Music by Hitesh Sonik is normal, and except "Nanhi si jaan" (sung by Shankar Mahadevan, penned by Amole Gupte), all songs are forgettable. Even they try to copy the famous "Maan" of TZP in "Jhoola Jhool". Best scenes include-:

1. The interaction of bachcha gang

   
   




2. Making a fool of Hindi teacher by telling wrong about their place to eat lunches, so as to avoid the bhukkad

   
   




3. The scene when Stanley bring his own dabba, and teaches an important life value to the teacher

   
   

I was confused a bit over the teaching done by Hindi teacher, he was teaching them "Varnamala", but the children are able to speak good english, even talking hard words, taking part in competition, even making science project reports, so I doubt whether that level of student is taught "Varnamala" or not!

But you can watch this movie once for the innocent effort, and check out a simple dabba, which is full of stanley's dreams. My Take 2.5/5 for feel and effort. Watch it on CD/DVD, as I don't think anybody will be playing it in theatres.

GRuchirG.