Aaja Nachle - A Never Seen Before One Woman Show

The Queen of Bollywood is back, back after a hiatus of 6 years and this time she’s ready to dance the night away. Dubbed as her big comeback film, Aaja Nachle is yet another production from the Yash Raj Films Banner which seems to be doing a great job of producing high quality movies with varying storylines (lookout for the directorial debut of Jugal Hansraj with Roadside Romeo, a Yash Raj Films and Walt Disney Pictures production starring Saif Khan).

Mrs. Madhuri Dixit Nene(affectionately called mads) comes straight into the picture with the very first scene itself, which shows her grooving away to a pulsating aerobic dance. Mads is Dia Srivastava, a new york city based choroegrapher who eloped with her american boyfriend on the night of her wedding in India. Dia was a born dancer who learnt and honed her skills in the indian town of Shamli under the tutelage of her guru and was the main attraction of a theatre group called Ajanta. After she eloped she was tagged as an outcast and her family was forced to abandon the city. But Dia must now return to Shamli as her beloved guru has passed away and the institution of Dance and Drama is that he so lovingly nurtured is in decay and under threat of demolition. Dia vows to bring back the good old days of the city and has two months of time to choreograph and stage a dance based drama with all the lead actors coming from the town of Shamli itself. Dia must fight against the whole town in an attempt to restore her lost pride and re-ignite the town’s old cultural values. How she does this and whether she manages to do the play titled “Laila-Majnu” is what the rest of the film deals with.

The film starts off slowly and the biggest problem of the movie is it’s pace, the movie starts and stops at several places and this makes it’s length of 150 minutes seem a bit too long. Coming from a good banner the movie has great picturisation and cinematography coupled with good dance numbers. One of the highlights of the movie is the use of simple rural rustic dialogues which provide the comic angle. The film is actually quite funny in places and people who weren’t too busy dozing off were actually in splits. Konkana Sen as the wannabe Laila and Akshaye Khanna as the modern, highly educated MP(similar to Sachin Pilot, Navin Jindal) also put in good performances.

Finally the movie really belongs to just one person, Mads. Everyone has heard of one man shows with Shah Rukh Khan being a prime example but how many of us have heard of a one woman show. Aaja Nachle belongs only to madhuri as she literally carries the whole movie on her shoulders. She at age 42 looks great(although some signs of age do show) and there is frankly no mainstream bollywood actress who can match steps with her when it comes to dance. Kareena Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and the likes can take a bow before Mads when it comes to dancing and sensuality, sorry babes but you are still miles away from Madhuri. So if you’re a big time madhuri dixit fan then go catch her in Aaja Nachle and you won’t be dissappointed. But if you’re looking for some quality masala and entertainment(like OSO) or something with a strong message(like Chak De), then you can probably give this one a miss and wait for the next big movie of the year Aamir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par.