Rahul Desai
While most movies thrive on having their heart in the right place, this one is all about seeking a right place – and pace – for the heart. Evidently, Fairy Folk is a weird film. But it’s a poignant and funny kind of weird. The parables fly thick and fast.
The improvised nature of the performances – it works meta-wonders that Mukul Chadda and Rasika Dugal are a real-life couple; that the supporting cast are all real-life friends – humanises the big swing of the script.
Gour’s editing does a good job of erasing the expository blanks of magic realism. The clever transitions – where the narrative often jumps from shock to acceptance; from revelation to regime – don’t bother with the plausibility of their situation.
Chadda, in particular, is terrific as a tense man struggling to confront the casualties of co-living. He plays Mohit as a Nice Guy whose anatomy of desire is scrambled after years of sameness. There is an ache about him, even as his anxiety drains their apartment of its warmth.
Even when the themes get blurry, the specificity of the scenes is entertaining. Watching them speak and react like people who’re too close-knit to question each other’s sanity is, often, the point of the film.
Fairy Folk, a massive love story masquerading as a minor marriage story. The kshay (“decay”) is only part of the whole. The rest goes on to explore marital angst through the lens of urban romanticism: A real-world need for companionship mutates into a fabled prayer for love.