Dream Girl

Karam has been able to speak in a woman's voice since childhood. He played the women's parts in the neighbourhood plays. Now he has no work and his father is in debt. He sees an advertisement: a telephone chat line is hiring. He takes the job and starts talking as Pooja. The line catches on. Callers ask for Pooja; a policeman, a widow, his own brother in law and his father. They all fall in love with her and they all want to meet. Karam has a fiancée as well, and she is starting to sense something. Raaj Shaandilyaa directs. Ayushmann Khurrana plays Karam; Nushrratt Bharuccha, Annu Kapoor and Manjot Singh are in the cast. The language is Hindi. The film did large business in India and a sequel was made. The humour rests on misunderstanding; every caller enlarges a different lie. The matter it treats is loneliness; the film builds the chat line as a joke but everyone calling is genuinely alone. The narrative is about small city life as well and is set in Mathura. Ayushmann Khurrana was known in this period for comedies with unusual premises and this belongs to that vein. There is a speech at the end where the narrative states its argument openly. Its limit is method; the narrative repeats, the second half is conventional, and the ending explanatory. Who it is for: viewers who like Indian comedy and films built on games of identity. Who it is not for: it is conventional, long, and the ending preachy.