Barfi!

Barfi! is a 2012 Indian Hindi-language romantic comedy film written and directed by Anurag Basu, edited by Akiv Ali and produced by Ronnie Screwwala and Siddharth Roy Kapur under the banner of UTV Motion Pictures. The film stars Ranbir Kapoor as the eponymous lead with Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D'Cruz, while Saurabh Shukla, Ashish Vidyarthi, Jisshu Sengupta, Roopa Ganguly and Haradhan Bandopadhyay star in pivotal roles. Set in 1970s Darjeeling and Kolkata, the film is about Barfi (Kapoor), a deaf-mute young man based in Darjeeling, and his relationships with two lovely girls - Shruti (D'Cruz) and Jhilmil (Chopra) - who is autistic.
Plot
Murphy Johnson a.k.a. Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor) is an optimistic, street-wise, charming young man, who was born deaf and mute to a lower middle-class Nepali family in Darjeeling. His mother died while giving birth to him and his father Jungbahadur (Akash Khurana) raised him as a single parent, while working as a chauffeur. Barfi is known to be a troublemaker - he cuts lampposts, plays practical jokes on innocent people, and is often chased in a comical way by Inspector Sudhanshu Dutta (Saurabh Shukla), a local police officer. Barfi meets Shruti Ghosh (Ileana D'Cruz), a gorgeous, educated young girl, who is new in Darjeeling. She is engaged to a rich man named Ranjeet Sengupta (Jisshu Sengupta) and is due to get married in three months. Barfi is immediately smitten by her heavenly beauty and tries to woo her. Shruti also falls in love with Barfi, but her mother (Roopa Ganguly) dissuades her from pursuing him because he could not take care of her with his disabilities and lack of money. Shruti takes her mother's advice, gets married to Ranjeet, and leaves the town, breaking all contact with Barfi.
Shortly after Shruti's departure, Jungbahadur loses his job of a chauffeur and suffers from kidney failure, compelling Barfi to somehow raise the money for his treatment. After an unsuccessful attempt of robbing a local bank due to Inspector Dutta's intervention, Barfi contemplates the kidnapping of Jhilmil Chatterjee (Priyanka Chopra) - his autistic childhood friend and wealthy heiress of her late grandfather's fortune - for a ransom. Upon arriving, Barfi finds out that she has already been kidnapped from her house and sees her in an unattended van. He sneaks in and drives Jhilmil away from the ransom delivery. Barfi proceeds to hide her in his apartment with the police in pursuit, and delivers a ransom note - that is pasted with words in newspaper cut-outs - to Jhilmil's wealthy father Durjoy Chatterjee (Ashish Vidyarthi). Although Barfi is able to cleverly collect the ransom from Jhilmil's father, he is aghast to discover that Jungbahadur has died just as he makes the hospital payment. Dejected, Barfi tries to leave Jhilmil at her caretaker's village, but she refuses to leave him, and the two soon move to Kolkata, where Barfi assumes responsibility for Jhilmil and strives hard to take care of her.
Six years later, Barfi and Shruti reunite by fate in a street-side utensil shop. Shruti is unhappy with her marriage with Ranjeet and tries to rekindle her friendship with Barfi, much to chagrin of the lovestruck Jhilmil, who then goes missing in the city. Shruti files a missing person report for Jhilmil. Inspector Dutta and the other Darjeeling police learn about the report, resume their pursuit of Barfi, and succeed in arresting him after a yet another comical chase. As he is being interrogated, another ransom demand for Jhilmil is made, and she is apparently killed in the process of the exchange, though her body is never found. In order to conclude the case, the police decide to frame Barfi for Jhilmil's murder. Inspector Dutta, who grew fond of Barfi after chasing him for his nuisances, asks Shruti to take him away, offering him a second chance in life. Shruti agrees and hopes that since now Jhilmil is gone, she can finally be with Barfi.
However, Barfi deeply affected by Jhilmil's loss and finds living with Shruti unfulfilling. Eventually, he stumbles upon Jhilmil's special-care home address on the scribbles that she had made in their house. Barfi takes Shruti to the location to look for her and they learn that Jhilmil is alive all along, and that both the kidnappings were fabricated by her father so that he could embezzle money from Jhilmil's trust fund. In the second attempt, the second time, Jhilmil's father and the special-care home owner Daju (Haradhan Bandopadhyay) together faked her death, so that Jhilmil could return to her special-care home, away from her alcoholic mother (Preeti Mamgain). However, Daju has a change of mind upon seeing Barfi's true love for Jhilmil and lets her go with him. Barfi has a happy reunion with Jhilmil there and the two are married, while Shruti spends rest of her days alone, prosperous, having lost her chance to be with Barfi.
Several years later, an elderly Barfi is shown to be gravely ill at the hospital and is close to death. Jhilmil lies with him on the hospital bed, while Shruti narrates how they both died peacefully, not wanting to leave each other behind in life or death. The film ends with the happy days of Barfi and Jhilmil in their old age at the special-care home and the credits roll.
Cast
Ranbir Kapoor as Murphy Johnson a.k.a. Barfi
Priyanka Chopra as Jhilmil Chatterjee
Ileana D'Cruz as Shruti Ghosh Sengupta
Saurabh Shukla as Inspector Sudhanshu Dutta
Ashish Vidyarthi as Durjoy Chatterjee (Jhilmil's father)
Jisshu Sengupta as Ranjeet Sengupta (Shruti's fiance turned husband)
Roopa Ganguly as Mrs. Ghosh (Shruti's mother)
Uday Tikekar as Mr. Ghosh (Shruti's father)
Haradhan Bandopadhyay as Daju (Jhilmil's special-care home owner)
Arun Bali as Nanaji (Jhilmil's maternal grandfather)
Preeti Mamgain as Mrs. Chatterjee (Jhilmil's mother)
Akash Khurana as Jungbahadur Johnson (Barfi's father)
Kenneth Desai as Senior Inspector
Rajeev Mishra as Inspector Dutta's assistant
Bholaraj Sapkota as Bhola (Barfi's close friend)
Sujata Sehgal as Ms. D'Souza (founder member of Jhilmil's special-care home)
Nirmala Thappa as Malti Mausi (Jhilmil's caretaker)
Sumona Chakraborty as Shruti's friend
Production
The movie was made on a budget of around . Barfi! was released worldwide on 14 September 2012. The movie was successful at the box office. The movie became one of the highest-earning Bollywood films of 2012 in India and abroad. The movie earned over worldwide.
Awards
The movie was selected as the official entry of India for Best Foreign Language Film nomination for the 85th Academy Awards. Barfi won many awards and nominations at different award ceremonies all over India. At the 58th Filmfare Awards, the movie received thirteen nominations which includes Best Actress for Chopra, and Best Supporting Actress for D'Cruz. The movie won seven awards which includes Best Film, Best Actor for Kapoor, Best Female Debut for D'Cruz, and Best Music Director for Pritam.
Soundtrack
The music and background music of the movie is composed by Pritam Chakraborty. The lyrics were written by Swanand Kirkire, Ashish Pandit, Neelesh Misra and Sayeed Quadri. The soundtrack album contains six original songs which were released on 9 August 2012. The soundtrack was influenced by Brazilian music Bossa nova. Priyanka Chopra was supposed to sing a track for the movie, but her contract with Universal Music prevented her from taking the offer. The soundtrack album also includes a song titled "Fatafati" which was sung by Pritam Chakraborty, Arijit Singh and Nakash Aziz. It was not used in the film, but the song was released as a promotional single on YouTube on 10 September 2012. It was released with a video that contains some behind-the-scenes footage. The additional vocals were sung by Ranbir Kapoor. The song also has some Bengali lyrics which were written by Amitabh Bhattacharya.
References
Other websites
2010s Hindi-language movies
2012 romantic comedy movies
Movies about autism
2010s Indian movies
2012 comedy-drama movies