Full marks to Abhay Deol on his transition from actor to producer. One By Two is high on production values and everything about the film is pleasing – from the look to decor to costumes and make-up.
Unfortunately, one can’t say the same about the story, screenplay or dialogue. The is inconsistent and fails on the entertainment front. Sure, there are some scenes that impress but they are few and far between, and fail to hold the film together.
The film follows the two protagonists, Amit Sharma (Abhay Deol) and Samara Patel (Preeti Desai), in their respective lives. Amit is living a frustrating and boring life and hence his long-time girlfriend Radhika (Geetika Tyagi) dumps him. On the other hand, Samara wants to be a dancer but cannot find the right platform to showcase her skills. She loses hope of making her big dream come true. Amit’s mum (Rati Agnihotri) wants him to get married and settle down. Samara’s mother (Lilette Dubey) is a single mother with a drinking problem.
In pursuit of her dream, Samara decides to enter a reality television show, Dance Wars. Amit learns that Radhika’s new boyfriend is the show’s producer and to get her back, he plans to hack the results website and fudge the numbers. Amit assumes that Radhika will realise that her boyfriend is a failure and will reunite with Amit. But Amit’s sneaky plan sees Samara getting kicked off the show. What follows in Amit and Samara’s lives and how they finally meet takes the story forward.
The story starts to crawl as soon as it begins. Screenplay should have the ability to engage the audience from the very opening sequence and, at the very least, hold their attention throughout. One By Two doesn’t pass muster.
Devika Bhagat, who marks her directorial debut with this film, has an impressive body of work as a writer, from hit television shows like Mahi Way to mainstream films like Bachna Ae Haseeno, Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl and Jab Tak Hai Jaan, to name only a few. In her first attempt at direction, Bhagat comes across as an able director but she should have worked on her screenplay a lot more considering she was debuting as a director with this film.
Among the scenes that impress are the one where Amit loses his cool and leaves his office after thrashing his computer, and the conversations between Amit and his mother, and Amit and his friends. However, the fundamental flaw is that while Amit’s character sketch is strong, Samara’s is weak. Considering that Samara is an aspiring dancer, there was ample scope to include scenes with her dancing. Sadly, this is not so.
However, the film scores on the technical front. The split-screen sequence where the film follows both the characters is impressive though it is perplexing at times. Cinematography by Sameer Arya is superb. Editing by Shan Mohammed is good. With a runtime of 139 minutes, and considering the slow pace of the film, there was ample scope to delete a few scenes.
Performance-wise, Abhay Deol stays true to his character and pays attention to the minute details of emotion with conviction. Preeti Desai can neither act nor emote but does look good on screen. Rati Agnihotri is superb. Jayant Kriplani makes you laugh. Darshan Jariwala, as always, delivers a bravura performance.
Lilette Dubey acts superbly. Preetika Chawla does justice to her part. Geetika Tyagi is good. Shrishti Arya in a blink-and-miss role is notable. The rest of the supporting cast – Anish Trivedi, Yudhishtir, Tahir Bhasin, Maya Sarao, Rajesh Asthana and Diwakar Pundir – fit the bill.
Verdict: Flop!
