The writer of dud Aisha, Devika Bhagat takes to the helm of this urban story about two young people searching for purpose in their meandering lives.
Amit Sharma (Abhay Deol) is a software engineer nursing a broken heart, which is further shattered when his ex-girlfriend describes him as boring.
Across town, Samara Desai is chasing a dream of become a lead dancer and being accepted by her estranged father. This is pretty much all that happens for the first two hours of One By Two.
The pace quickens in the last forty minutes when Amit decides to shake things up in his life and Samara decides to go with the flow. Till this point the lead characters have still not met. Their lives intersect at many junctures but the meet-cute happens only in the closing minutes.
The most engaging scenes are those of Deol with a prospective arranged bride Shishika (Yashika Dhillon) – finally a character one could enjoy, and the breakdown scene when he sings ‘Pakaoed’ in his boxers in front of his would-be-in-laws.
Preeti Desai is easy in front of the camera but unconvincing as a dancer, lacking the grace and fluidity you expect from a dancer. Further none of the dances set you on the edge of your seat.
One By Two is struggs to evoke laughs when one scene is dedicated to flatulence. It’s a slim, almost anorexic storyline put to visuals which you don’t even need to watch – there is so much talking and so little movement that you know what is going on just by listening. This gives you plenty of time to tweet, Facebook and text as you are watching One By Two.
Overall, One By Two is immature and dull, a factor of the shallow story (hard to believe Bhagat also wrote the far more inventive Manorama Six Feet Under) and uninspired direction.
There is only so much a brooding, ‘pakaoed’ Deol and supporting actors Darshan Jariwala, Rati Agnihotri, Jayant Kripalani and Lillete Dubey can do to distract you from that.
Rating: *1/2
