Dukaan Struggles to Deliver Impact Amidst Big Eid Releases

Just before the clash of the two biggies on Eid holiday, a small budget movie got a muted release this weekend; Dukaan is a two hours ten minutes social drama highlighting the surrogacy issue, which had turned in to a business before the Indian Government put a curb on it. We already had the far better and engaging Mimi (2021) dealing on the same subject.

Centering around Jasmine (Monika Panwar), the film explores her life journey in to surrogacy for financial reasons after the death of her elderly hubby (Sikandar Kher in a thankless cameo). In fact, her entire village women indulge in this surrogacy business and for some strange reason, get heavily pregnant at the same time. The first scene where we see all these women together, carrying their nine months pregnant belly appears more kinky and funny than serious!!

Anyway, cut to the plot, Jasmine or 'Jess Meen' as the Gujju babe is called, delivers two surrogate kiddos before getting senti over her third surrogate child and elopes with the new-born to Pushkar. In an unintentionally hilarious scene, the gynecologist shouts "Push kar, push kar" and the film immediately cuts to actual Pushkar location. Tee hee!!

Monika Panwar plays Jasmine with the right amount of grit and conviction, making her character highly relatable and endearing. You root for her and sympathize with her emotional issues, however unrealistic they seem. Here's an actress, who clearly rises above the script and literally delivers (pun intended). Unfortunately, Dukaan doesn't do her justice...

Ratings on some key aspects* :
1. Acting : 4/5 (Monika Panwar)
2. Direction : 2/5
3. Music : 2.5/5
4. Story, Screenplay and Dialogue : 2/5
5. Cinematography : 3/5
6. Editing : 2.5/5
7. Costume Design : 3.5/5
8. Special Effects and VFX : NA
9. Action : NA
10. Production Quality : 3/5

#SNRating for #Dukaan : 2 & 1/2 stars out of 5.

- Sumeet Nadkarni

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* - The overall film rating is not a simple average of all ratings on key aspects but a weighted average of the ratings where some crucial aspects (like direction, acting, story and screenplay etc) are assigned more weightage than others.

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#SNRatings barometer:
1 star = Poor
1 & 1/2 star = Below average/ Avoidable
2 stars = Average
2 & 1/2 stars = Above average/ Risk it
3 stars = Good enough/ Endurable
3 & 1/2 stars = Definitely worth a watch
4 stars = Very good
5 stars = Masterpiece/ Outstanding.

2024 SNRatings. 

Authored by Sumeet Nadkarni: