Adheen ★★★½

Family tension, challenges with past, issues in present and a possible future – how does this family copes with all?

Synopsis

Adheen is a story of differences in a family. The short story unravels the challenges the characters faced in the past and their stances. Well ,they generally stay apart and they rarely meet with each other. This time they have come together because they got to know about failing health of their dad. I will rather stop here, because everything else about the story should be learnt when you watch the film.

What works

Adheen has yet another great piece of work from actor Sanjay Mishra. He is the central character of the story and does a magnificent job at being the character. Neeraj and Anupriya also have done well in their respective roles.

The better part of Adheen is the story. The story is a almost a thriller, with an interesting ending. I am almost feeling sorry here as I cannot drop any hints at all about this short film. However, I can tell you this much that the characters are not what they sound in the first one or two minutes. As they talk, you will see that characters run deeper when they share glimpses of the past.

Last, I liked the song that plays in the past. Coincidentally, the song is performed by Neeraj who has also played the role of the son.

I also liked dialogues and the setup – the room where the movie is shot is done very well. Small details like Sanjay mixing Tang (or Rasna) are captured well.

What could have been better

While Adhheen is a good short film, it has its own flaws. One, the characters are too atypical. One or two would be alright, but all the four (yes, there are four characters) characters deviate from the society’s normality. In the same family, this was a little too much for me, and makes me wonder if this was done just to spicy things up!

Verdict

Overall, Adheen is a perfectly watchable short film. It is pretty good , in fact. It is just that it does not cut the list of the bests. Also, while we loved the ending, not everyone may like it.

AglaPlay Verdict: Worth A Watch
AglaPlay Rating: 3.5/5
Language: Hindi
Duration: ~19 minutes
Writer-Director:  Yash Verma
Cast: Sanjay Mishra,
Neeraj Purohit & 
Anupriya Goenka
Adheen: Short film on familial tensions

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Unarranged ★★★★½

Groom talks with his bride for the first time as he sneaks into her room, as Baarat waits outside!

Synopsis

Unarranged is an unusual beautiful story of an arranged marriage. This short film presents an unusual situation where the groom has come to meet the bride just before the marriage. It seems that the bride’s consent was never taken for the marriage and she is obviously furious over the whole developments. What happens next is a classic take on this unusual situation.

What works

Unarranged has an amazing story line. While we agree that the groom coming to meet bride for the first time just before the marriage is a tad unusual, but that is what it is! Apart from that piece, the whole story flows spontaneously.

In fact, the story connects deeply with the thought processes of so many young couples who decided to tie the knot under the arranged marriage setup. Like the characters in this short film, they also would be knowing little about their future partners.

Unarranged also has very good acting. Syed Shabahat Ali nails the role of the groom. He captures the audience attention and sympathy. Tanya Singh also fit well in the role of bride. We could not find any fault with the other three characters as well.

This short film also has an surprisingly good detailing on the audio. For those who will notice, the background noise fade-ins and fade-outs are balanced very well to reflect the outdoor noise and the emotional timings.

What could have been better

Nothing that we could find on. We really liked Unarranged and there is nothing that we would like to point our fingers on.

Verdict

Unarranged is a gem, and a must watch short film. It is young audience friendly and whole family can watch this short film together. After watching short films like Unarranged, one wonders why Bollywood fails to produce such great content with their huge budgets! But anyway…

AglaPlay Verdict: A Must Watch
AglaPlay Rating: 4.5/5
Language: Hindi
Duration: ~19 minutes
Writer-Director:  Rahul Bhatnagar
Cast: Syed Shabat Ali,
Tanya Singh,
Rishabh Tripathi,
Apurva Shukla &
Vipin
Unarranged: A Must Watch Short Film on Arranged Marriage

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Ummeed ★

A short film depicting children as a hope for nature and environment conservation.

Synopsis

Ummeed is a collage of clippings from lives of children in a society. This short film merely picks up few scenes from different situations and merges them together. Mostly these scenes are used to develop the characters, and their conscience.

What Works

Ummeed – The Hope has a nice theme. While the short film falls short on almost all parameters, theme is not one of the faulty areas. In fact, we appreciate the team’s attempt to present the children’s caring attitude towards nature. Hence, the name ‘hope’. That is, there is hope for the earth thanks to the future generation.

What does not work

Almost everything falls in this category. Ummeed- The Hope is, if we may say, a completely hopeless short film.

To start with the complaints, the scenes just fly out of nowhere into your face. The scenes seem to have hardly any connection between them.

To make it worse, the acting is terrible. Now, you might say these are children and the theme is good and we shall respect the attempt – we have done that when we paid respect to the theme. But the acting is pathetic. Agreed that directing children can be a tough job, but in Ummeed, the grown ups act worse!

Another major flaw with Ummeed is its complete disrespect and inconsideration to core story, which is rains. In the story it is raining heavily due to which certain things are happening. However, all outdoor scenes seem to be in a perfectly dry, hot weather with no signs of water anywhere! Such a disconnect shows the carefree approach from the team.

Incidentally, the callous attitude of the production team is not hard to find in any scene. Almost all scenes feel doctored.

Lastly, we must mention dialogues. Now the dialogues are so artificial in the first place and worsened by literal recitation by the actors.

Verdict

Stay away. There is nothing hopeful in Ummeed- the hope which is worth watching. We pushed ourselves to complete the short film and then the review, because we have the job of the critic. You don’t need to give your time to this expressionless motley.

AglaPlay Verdict: Do not watch
AglaPlay Rating: 1/5
Language: Hindi
Duration: ~9 minutes
Writer-Director:  Aishwarya Chakyadath
Cast: Various
Ummeed – The Hope: A Hopeless Attempt

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Wajood ★★★★

This award-winning short film explores emotions of transgenders – the most ignored section of society.

Synopsis

Wajood (Selfhood) is story of a transgender who identifies self as a she. This short film depicts emotions of most sidelined section of Indian society through her. While the protagonist is dealt the wrong cards by cruel fate, she has all the emotions of a normal human being. Like us, she feels hots for a person of different sex. Likewise, she also feels ashamed and bad at being disrespected. Amidst all this, though, she also recognizes her identity and finds happiness in small things.

What Works

Wajood finally fills the gap on honest simple stories about the ignored gender. The short film showcases the identity of the third gender with impact, yet with sweetness. With the very short runtime of 8 minutes, the protagonist wins not only our sympathy, but also our admiration.

Wajood has a pretty everyday story and we loved that. We can easily find the works which talk about the atrocities to present the wrongs done to any group. One just needs to check Whatsapp. However, this short film through its narration takes the audience through a different path. It makes the audience to see through the difference in the thought process between the observer and the observed.

This short film excels also on the acting, music and cinematography fronts. Actors have done a great job, and it is overall, a gem from writer-director Vishal Srivastava.

What could have been better

On Wajood, actually the question would have been “what could have been just marginally better”. You just might be able to notice it in dialogues of the head transgender if you focus, but nothing to ponder over.

Verdict

In nutshell, Wajood is a great short film, and a must watch.

AglaPlay Verdict: A must watch, sweet, situational Rom-Com
AglaPlay Rating: 3.5/5
Language: Hindi / English
Duration: ~8 minutes
Writer-Director: Neha Pawar
Cast: Ashwani Kumar,
Kalyani Pandit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6qmspmMvS0&t=50s
Wajood: Gem of a Short film

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The Perfect Match ★★★½

A Couple’s ship of love and dating hits the iceberg of Indian arrange marriage. what happens next?

Synopsis

The Perfect Match is the story of hurdles in ‘arranging’ a love marriage. The short film depicts a couple (Riya and Harsh) who has decided to tie a knot. Had it been a western society, they might be planning the wedding location and dates. But in traditional Indian societies, there are a few more steps involved!

This sweet short film elaborates on one of Horoscope matching. While doing so, it also does great job at depicting few amusing character traits of Harsh and Riya.

What works

First and foremost,The Perfect Match excels on its focused execution of the topic of Horoscope matching. Generally such films have tendency to get mixed up with all sorts of issues like caste, religion etc. Accordingly, they deliver on the issues, but totally kill the characters. Worse, they do not give the audience to focus on any one situation and the characters’ stances.

Another great work is the dialogue exchange between Harsh and Riya. The dialogues deliver everything dialogues are supposed to be. In The Perfect Match, the conversations tell us the back story, the current states of mind, as well the ongoing state of affairs. To the credit of writer-director Neha Pawar, most of the dialogues still flow very naturally.

But nothing would matter if the actors are bad. Luckily, the actors The Perfect Match, Ashwani and Kalyani put up a great show together. Least to say, their on-screen chemistry shines through the short film.

Last but most importantly, this short film captures the minutest nuisances of the relationship between a girl-friend and boy-friend. Smallest details on nature, egos, actions and expectations are so marvelously captured!

What could have been better

Some of the dialogues and actions by the leads seem too dramatic and artificial. They are not many, but they are there. If it was an average or a bad movie, these situations would not even be noticeable. Since the overall movie is so great, they appear little out of place. Nothing major, though!

Verdict

Overall The Perfect Match is a perfect sweet little short film which must be watched!

AglaPlay Verdict: A must watch, sweet, situational Rom-Com
AglaPlay Rating: 3.5/5
Language: Hindi / English
Duration: ~8 minutes
Writer-Director:  Neha Pawar
Cast: Ashwani Kumar,
Kalyani Pandit

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