A big, fat, wet smooch to life

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Fatso! is a sweet little film in a contemporary setting that packs in many messages about body fat, body image, shakal versus seerat, true love and even the asinine ways of Indian bureaucracy. Yet, despite its political impulse, director Rajat Kapoor manages to keep the film light and often funny.

The story is about a group of friends in Mumbai. Nandini (Gul Panag) and Naveen (Purab Kohli) are an item and are about to get married; Yash (Neil Bhoopalam) and Tanuja (Gunjan Bakshi) are also an item but are noncommittal. Sudeep (Ranvir Shorey) is the group’s singleton, a slightly sad large guy who is uncomfortable in his skin and constantly seeks the company of fried, fatty foods. He is a painter, though that is of no interest to the film.
The five friends hang out together, chat, joke, watch films, dance at parties and go shopping. One fine day the boys decide to drive to the hills. It’s foggy, they are joking, laughing and the next second their car crashes into a stationary truck. Sudeep is in the back seat and is not responding to Yash’s shaking, but he comes around, only to realise that Naveen is dead.
Next we see Naveen walking out of a lift with a sarkari type guy in a safari suit. Vijay (Brijendra Kala), we soon figure, is also dead, and is, well, a junior Yamraj, and was assigned the task of killing Sudeep and getting him. Instead he has brought Naveen to what looks like a regular, incompetent sarkari daftar. This cocky little skit could have easily gone wrong, but it has been handled with care and a smirk. The long queues of dead miners, naval officers, pilgrims, even a chaiwalla office boy, and smart dialogue and babugiri make it a delightful, memorable satire.
Because of the slow movement of files in this heavenly daftar, by the time Naveen gets his paperwork done to return to earth, his body has already been cremated. He can now return only in Sudeep’s body. He agrees to do so, grudgingly, because he really loves Nandini and wants to be with her.
But for that to happen, Sudeep must first die, which he does, in a nicely poignant scene. And then Naveen must find peace inside a large body and help Nandini find reason to love ungainly Sudeep. All that happens, of course, after some cute complications, and the film finally signs off with a charming soliloquy delivered by Ranvir Shorey which is just a big, wet smooch to life as we know it.

Fatso!, written by Rajat Kapoor and Saurabh Shukla, has been ready for over two years. Whatever the reasons for its delayed release, the story, inspired by many happy ghost films of the past, is naughty and has wicked twists.
Everyone is good in the film’s small line-up of actors, but Neil Bhoopalam, Brijendra Kala and Faisal Rashid (who has a two-bit role as Amar) are very good. Gul Panag looks fetching. Fatso!’s biggest draw, however, is Ranvir Shorey. He inhabits his fat suit with appropriate irritation initially and, later, frustration.