Review of Bengali Movie Obhishopto Nighty

At one point, in this movie ,a character says "Bengali movies were doing very well showing extra marital affairs and relationship tales then what was the requirement to make such a movie", yes it is true so far adult certified Bengali films were only meant to be an extra marital affair story or a complicated story about human relationships but probably this is the first time that any filmmaker has tried his hands on an out an out adult comedy in Bengali.
But the question is whether the filmmaker succeeded in his bold experiment or not and the answer is yes he is successful but partially. Of course it is bold in its approach but the adult contents are only in concept there is not such bold scenes which used to be there in other adult Bengali movies and the comedy is also limited to a certain section of audiences only. This is made for selective audiences only not for masses and the makers are very well aware of their audiences, so they never tried to go cross the limit to add double meaning dialogues or  cheap vulgar scenes.

The story revolves around a nighty, a cursed nighty. In the 80's there was a bar singer Monica (Paoli Dam) who fall in love with a rich brat Raja (Indraneil Sengupta). It was a true love from her end but Raja cheated her and marry someone else. Monica committed suicide for this incident but her soul remains trapped in that pink nighty which Raja had gifted him and her soul keeps roaming in search of true love in the form of the cursed nighty. The nighty keeps going on  from hand to hand from a conservative family to a newly married couple to a struggling actress to a well known singer to a woman who knows black magic but unfortunately it finds only lust not true love from anyone. 

Director Birsa Dasgupta has tried a very fresh approach to tell this story, it has been shown that a panel of censor board members are watching the movie and giving their expert comments and suggestion. In this way he has criticized his own movie as well as he has made a satirical attack on the censor board and the representatives of so called well behaved hoigh class society members like politicians , businessman , social activists etc.

The screenplay written by Debaloy Bhattacharya works well in the first half but in the second half the comedy takes a backseat as just like the cursed nighty the story also starts searching for true love between an aspiring actress Apsara (Tanushree) and a trainee film journalist Aparesh Lahiri (Parambrato Chatterjee). There are too many subplots and too many characters so none of the characters get enough screen time to be developed properly.
As a result lots of character can not leave any impact on the story as well as on the audiences. There are some portions which can be avoided like a dream sequence where a housewife (Locket Chatterjee) is dreaming about her sexual desires with an animated duck in a heaven kind of place. The newly married couple episode featuring real life husband wife Rahul and Priyanaka could have been avoided as it serves no purpose.The cursed nighty is there in their story whatever happened to them is not because of the nighty so it is no where related to the main story.
Another confusion is that the concept of a film within a film is not strictly followed always, one person from the censor board member panel, Parimal Dutta (Neel Mukherjee) along with his family members ,is involved in the film which they are reviewing .

There are some interesting moment too like the one where a housewife played by Locket Chatterjee makes out with a dudhwala or the Mahabharat inspired gambling sequence between two producers at a film party or the situation where a Tagore song artist talks with a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore. The discussion among the censor board members are also hilarious.

Among the crowd of characters there are some characters who have been successful to stand out and make an impact like Mir and Sumit Samaddar as the lecher producers RSJ and Banchharam respectively, Locket Chatterjee as a sexually deprived housewife,Labani Sarkar as a Tagore song artiste Bonolakkhi (which is very much inspired from renowned singer Swagata Lakkhi). The censor board panel members like Abhijit Guha as a psychiatrist, Sudeshna Roy as a social activist, Supriyo Datta as Fire Brigade minister and Paran Bandopadhyay as a senior theater artist have done good job too. Singer Anindya Bose has made an attention grabbing appearance for few minutes as an orchestra singer at a filmy party.
Unfortunately the lead protagonists who have been given more screen time can not utilize

the opportunity because of the lack of freshness in their characters. The characters of a trainee journalist and an aspiring actress played by Parambrato Chatterjee and Tanushree respectively are too cliche that they does not make any special impact on the audiences. Paoli Dam and Indraneil Sengupta are just okay. Debaloy Bhattacharya's portrayal of a gay magazine editor Madhu is also too much over the top.

As a director Birsa Dasgupta has got much more public attention this time than his earlier two movies but he needs to focus more on his character development. But there are some fresh approach which he has used like the way he has made fun of censor board regulation like disclaimer regarding smoking or the use of animals in movie or the guest appearance of a superstar at the climax where the superstar himself says its a guest appearance. In fact the ending which indicates of its sequel is also very funy and innovative.Hope to see a better control over screenplay and characters from him in future.

The technical team has done good job, the dialogues written by Debaloy Bhattacharya are good enough to bring laughter, Soumik Halder's camerawork have created the much required drama for the movie  but the editing by Bodhaditya Banerjee could have been better.

There is not enough scope of music in the movie  but no doubt music composer Indraadip Dasgupta has scored very nice music specially the two songs "Roddur" and "Saadher Lighty"."Roddur" works very well in the background for the romantic track between Aparesh and Apsara. But the funny song "Saadher Lighty " has not been used properly in the movie. It comes in an appropriate situation but its picturization looks very bizarre. The director could have use it just in background in the movie and made a promotional video of the song featuring the whole cast to show it in the end credits or it could have been used as an item song featuring some renowned face but unfortunately the song has been picturized with some unknown artistes doing some weird dance steps which has been choreographed without paying any attention. But the wordings of the song is very witty and funny which goes very well with situation.

Overall it is a movie made with a fresh approach which will provide you some ROFL moments but don't expect more from it. It is just a time-pass movie which is good for one time watch. Yes you heard it right just one time just like the wordings on the posters of this film "Ek Piece i jotheshto noy ki? ( Isn't one piece of the nighty is enough?)" and if you think you want more than one piece then wait for its sequel "Obhishapto Pajama" which may come in future.