Bhool Bhulaiya Bhool Jaao!!

I went for Bhool Bhulaiya with very high expectations. Not only were they not met, they were shattered to pieces beyond hope. Bhool Bhulaiya was a movie that should best be missed. The only redeeming shots are the ones we get to see in the promos. With such a talented cast, one would hope to see some maturity in the film. Needless to say, there was none. The movie was a washout from the first to the last scene. It was neither a comedy nor a thriller of any kind.

The movie tries to showcase the complexities of human mind. However, one needs to be completely mindless to enjoy this film. Avni, played by Vidya Balan, is a girl with a troubled childhood. She loses her mother very early in life and stays with her nani. And like most grandmothers, Avni's nani gives her a regular dose of bedtime stories consisting of fairies and witches, princess and kings. What's hard to believe is that Avni loses her grip on reality just on the basis of these stories. Worried, her father takes her abroad with him.

All is going hunky dory in Avni's life now that she is away from the fairytales. She meets her Prince Charming, Siddharth (played by Shiney Ahuja) and gets married to him. Siddharth is not only her prince charming but a real life prince as well. So after marriage they go to a real palace. A palace that is believed to haunted.

New age Avni and Siddharth refuse to believe in ghosts even after repeated pleas from the relatives. Avni unlocks the room where the spirit of Manjulika, the courtesan is believed to be residing. Terror soon strikes as people start hearing Manjulika's voice and accidents happen to everyone staying in the palace. This is exactly where the film loses all focus whatsoever. Not that there was much to begin with. The viewer till the end does not understand whether there is a real ghost/spirit that has taken over Avni's body or whether it's just some kind of psychological problem.

One gets the idea that from watching the movie that there was no real ghost. Avni tried to live the life of Manjulika because she was fascinated by her life's story. This along with the fact that she had fantasized about her bedtime stories, leads her into a situation over which she has no control whatsoever. When she transforms from Avni to Manjulika, she really believes that she is the courtesan who was held by the king against her will. Siddharth being the prince automatically becomes the villanous king for Manjulika/Avni and she tries to kill him.

Akshay Kumar plays the role of a psycho-therapist who is called in by Siddharth to solve the mystery of the ghost. Initially Siddharth believes that Radha, played by Amisha Patel, is the one who is mentally unstable since she is an adopted child. Why should an adopted child be mentally disturbed is not clear to me. She is loved by her foster parents and foster-relatives. Of course towards the end it becomes clear that the problem is not with Radha but with Avni.

What perplexes me the most is that if there is no real spirit then how is it that Avni can speak fluent Bengali even though she has never learnt any Bengali. How is it that she can dance like a proper courtesan when she doesnt know how to dance like that. And most importantly, how does she get the strength to single-handedly lift the bed that is not easily moved even by 2 to 3 able bodied men. And if she was acting like the ghost how was the palace believe to be haunted even before she stepped into that town. Also there was another girl who had supposedly seen the ghost long before Avni came to the palace and had lost her voice due to severe shock. What had happened to her??

The screenplay is not well-written and leaves the viewers confused and annoyed. The movie leaves many questions unanswered and even more hopes dashed.