The Marathi film industry is well known for content-driven scripts. “& Jara Hatke” is one such Marathi movie with a new concept, realistic story, and crisp direction. The movie is produced by Ravi Jadhav. Prakash Kunte, the director of this movie has also directed excellent movies like Hampi, Cycle, and Coffee Ani Barach Kahi. The movie was released in 2016 in theatres. It is now available on Disney+ Hotstar. The movie has an amazing star cast including Mrinal Kulkarni, Indraneil Sengupta, Siddharth Menon, and Shivani Rangole in the lead role.
Meera (Mrinal Kulkarni) is a single parent who is a lecturer in college and stays in Pune. Her daughter Manu/Aastha (Shivani Rangole) is staying with her aunt (Sonali Khare) in Mumbai. Her parents got divorced when she was a child. But she is in constant touch with her father who lives in Canada and her mother too. Once Meera meets her old friend Aakash (Indraneil Sengupta) who is a sculptor by profession. His wife died due to cancer 7 years back. He has a son Nishant (Siddharth Menon) who is pursuing arts in Mumbai. Meera and Aakash fall in love, and they decide to get married. But when they tell their children about their marriage there seems an awkwardness with Aastha. Aakash asks Nishant to meet Aastha to resolve the matter. They meet and get along well and slowly become good friends. Aakash and Meera are busy making arrangements for their marriage, but destiny has some other plans.
While most of the movies are based on simple love stories this movie is Jara Hatke as it showcases the real issues faced by the modern generation. All the actors are superb. Indraneil is shown speaking Hindi and Bengali. That gives a novel touch to the movie. Siddharth Menon is again very good at expressing his emotions. Mrinal Kulkarni and Shivani Rangole are very effective in mother-daughter relation. The chemistry between Mrinal and Indraneil is beautiful. It’s wonderful to watch them together. Mrinal looks so pretty and graceful. The supporting cast consists of Suhas Joshi, Seema Deshmukh, Sandesh Kulkarni, and Madhura Deshpande and they have done a very good job. The music of this movie is composed by Aditya Bedekar. The song, “Umalun ale” sung by Shasha Tirupati and written by Sandeep Khare is a very soft and soothing romantic song. ‘Saang Na’ is another melodious song written by Mangesh Kangane and sung by Shail Hada & Hamsika Iyer.
The movie might not appeal to everyone owing to a very different genre. But it should be watched for its story and performances. Overall, a fresh and nice movie!