When Madhukri Dixit announced her comeback it was greeted with mixed reactions, but it was a sheer delight to see the diva enact, dance and emote in a role which celebrates her natural talent and beauty in a very elegant manner, in fact, the same can be said for this illustrious attempt by Anil Mehta to remind us about how soullessly we are squandering our glorious heritage in art and music.
 
The theme of the historic wastage is retold in a lucid and entertaining script with style glare by a gifted writer who wastes no time in coming to the crux of the problem and deals with it in a firm but light and frothy manner which will appeal to all classes.
 
Madhuri’s character is multi layered but appropriate as she plays a divorced mother, a successful stage dancer from New York who is stubborn but passionate to rescue the AJANTA THEATRE from her hometown of Shamli where she learnt to dream and dance, she is style galore and gives a really great portrayal as both a dancer and actress, but Konkona Sen as the rural, crude girl in a ugly duckling role who turns into a swan is effortlessly natural as is Kunal in his brash, macho but adorable turn as a local mobster.
 
Akshay Khanna in a special role is a real surprise as he delights and returns with the style he displayed in Salaam-E-Isq. Irfan Khan is good as the vile businessman who wants to replace the theatre with a mall.
 
This is both satire and reality of our present milieu where only greed and bucks are the real stuff and all things precious and noble like art or literature are relegated to nihilism.
 
The art direction and music fit the movie like a glove and further the story while the comic moments come naturally and it is delightful to see an adroit cast perform naturally in meaningful cinema.
 
This is miles ahead of Sawaariya and goal, and will delight all sections and aficionados of Hindi cinema as its well -executed and original and revels in its simplicity while keeping its message in an entertaining capsule rather than forcing it down your throat, also the dance spectacle in the finale is worth the cinema ticket alone.
 
I would rate this at 3.5 stars out of five any day and kudos to Yash Raj for making a purposeful movie after Chakde India.