Vicky Donor Movie Review by Khalid Mohamed

How now. Wow. His sperm is compared to Alexander the Great’s. Gee and even celebrity names like Dhoni, Brad Pitt and Beckam – and duh even Lady Gaga – are bandied about to assert his Aryaan pedigree. So does this sex comedy amount to murder in third degree?

Not entirely. Vicky Donor leaves you with majorly mixed feelings. It’s amusing in parts but is largely contrived and occasionally prurient-`n’-crude. A fairy tale of a screenplay written by Juhi Chaturvedi, it’s been co-produced by John Abraham who was obviously stimulated by its ribaldry on paper. And perhaps also because it belongs to the lately-hatched genre of modestly-budgeted movies set in New Delhi, with occasional vistas of purani Dilli (Jama Masjid is a must, natch). Expectedly, then, you’ll hear dialogue on the lines of, ‘You sister of a paratha!’ Mooli or aaloo, not specified.

On the upside, the Delhi-mein-ha-ha tickler features two entirely adorable old women (whose names , alas, are unlisted in the publicity material). Anonymousji ladies, do take a bow please. One is the eponymous Vicky’s grandma who loves to down a couple of stadium-sized whiskies in the evening. And there’s the donor’s mum, a robust guzzler, who runs a beauty parlour in Lajpat Nagar, and doesn’t care if she yells at the world around her at the volume of Led Zeppelin. Truly, how you wish Sircar’s Vicky Vaporub had narrated the stories of these two feisty ladies, instead of employing them as fringe-dwellers. Granny lusts for a new flat screen TV, while the boy’s mataji kicks butt..seriously.

Gen-X by comparison could be Y or Z, their characterisations shuttling between extremes – either too tapori or too goody-two shoes. In fact, the ne’er-do-well Vicky (Ayushmann Khuranna) could well be a distant cousin of the gadabout, Ranveer Singh, of Band Baaja Baraat. The only difference is that out here the hero actually goes Tara Sperm Pum Pum, even flaunting his er you-know-what collected in a transparent dibiya. Ugh ugh ugh. Coaxed into donordom by a quackish doctor (Annu Kapoor), who is trying to find a stud for his fertility clinic, the sperm factory boy becomes quickie-rich. And following the birth of sperm babies, the grateful families are sending the doc lakhs of flaming orange laddoos. Diabetes is in the air. Despair.

Till the interval, the sugar-rush is so excessive that you are lulled into a snoozzzzze. Post-intermission, the screenplay does a double flip. It gets dark, tastes like karela juice. After much inter-caste bickering, Punjabi Vicky boy weds Bong bank clerk (Yami Gautam). It’s repeated constantly that she’s a divorcee as if that were a black mark.

Worse, it seems she can’t bear a child, and while rummaging a drawerful of papers, screams at Vickyji, “How come you didn’t get himself tested for fertility too? Why whyyyy whyyyy?” He mumbles tests definitely not required. And she hurricanes off to her dad’s in Kolkata. Now Mrs Vickyji looks lonelier than Chowringhee Lane at dawn. Sob, sniff. Wait a minute though: her Bong dad (again senior actor’s name not highlighted) intervenes. Daddy Moshai is quite nicely mad actually. He has already declared that Bongs are ‘very good in sex’. No research poll required, evidently.

Truly the wrap-up is a hoot, verging on an anti-climax. Excuse that pun please, because it’s encouraged by the dialogue and the sight gags here which go yawn and yawn about sperm shakti. Undoubtedly, Chaturvedi’s screenplay, having dug itself into a hole, opts for sheer fantasy.

In terms of visual skill, the result looks blotchy. The editing is serviceable enough. As for the music, restricted essentially to the background, it’s sufficiently inspired.

Director Shoojit Sircar, whose debut-making Yahaan was extraordinary, is in form only intermittently. Read: during the Punjabi-Bengali frisson. And he creates the memorable, lovable old ladies, the libido-bragging Bong dad, not to forget his spinster sister who thaws slightly while breaking into a balle,balle. Now, these are fun, believable characters – and not the trite romantic pair or the fertility doc. By the way, doc keeps phoning someone with utter servility, a psychologically interesting point which is left underwritten.

Thank the lord, honestly, for the ensemble of oldies, who deliver excellent, first-rate performances. Debutante heroine, Yani Gautam is skilled and restrained but downright awful in the one hysterical scene assigned to her. As for Ayushmann Khuranna, he may not have any distinct USP but oozes sufficient confidence to make Vicky Donor half-likeable.

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