The story is about a Marathi girl, Meenakshi Deshpande, falling in love with a Tamil artist, Surya Iyer. She is a librarian at a college and has five members in her family (including herself): a wheelchair-using grandmother who is blind and has gold teeth; her father, who smokes four cigarettes together; her mother, who is obsessed with Meenakshi's marriage; and her brother Nana, whose only love in life is dogs. To escape the craziness of her family, Meenakshi lives her life in dreams. In her dreams, the only thing she's doing is dancing and enacting her favourite actresses, Madhuri Dixit, Sridevi, and Juhi Chawla. Her colleague Maina, nicknamed "Gaga Bai," is an eccentric woman who dresses up in weird ensembles inspired by pop star Lady Gaga.
Meenakshi's family is looking for a suitable groom, but Meenakshi, who does not believe in arranged marriages, is waiting for her prince and wants her dream wedding. That's when Surya enters. Surya is an art student, and the moment Meenakshi looks at him, she falls in love with his tanned skin and a mysterious fragrance emanating from him. By this time her family has found the 'right guy' Madhav for her and is rushing with her wedding.
The rest of the film involves Madhav running after Meenakshi and Meenakshi following Surya. Nana gets engaged to Maina under bizarre circumstances when Meenakshi goes missing on her engagement when she was following Surya and ends up in his incense sticks factory. Meenakshi learns that Surya's fragrance, that she got enthralled by, was because of his involvement in the factory. In the end, Meenakshi succeeds in winning over Surya's heart, and they get engaged in a traditional Maharashtrian ceremony.[3]
Pre-production started in August 2011 and the film went into shooting by the first week of October 2011. The shooting ended in April 2012, and the film was released on 12 October 2012.[4]
Certifications
Aiyyaa was given a UA by the CBFC despite the sexual scenes.[5]
The BBFC gave Aiyya a 12a for infrequent moderate sex and drug references.[5]
The soundtrack received positive reviews on release. Shresht Poddar, of Score Magazine, gave the album 3 out of 5 stars saying, "Melody-wise, the album is just above average. Innovation-wise, it scores full marks from me. Amit Trivedi dares to be experimental when his contemporaries are staying safe by sticking to tried-and-tested methods."[8]
The film was released worldwide on 12 October 2012. Aiyyaa received mixed to negative reviews. While Rani's was praised by critics, the plot was criticised. Bravos, a review aggregator website for Indian movies, assigned the film an average score of 38 (out of 100) based on 7. Madhureeta Mukherjee of Times of India gave it 2.5 stars. "Even with such a talented ensemble, this one turns into a cultural showpiece, and gets lost in translation."[9] "Aiyyaa is let down by its weak script," writes Prasanna D Zore of rediff.com.[10]
Roshni Devi of Koimoi gave it 3 stars. "Watch Aiyyaa for a quirkily different film with very good performances but be warned that it drags."[11] The social movie rating site MOZVO gave it 2.9 stars.[12] Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama gave it 3 stars.[13] Kanika Sikka of DNA gave it 2.5 stars. "Aiyyaa is an average entertainer".[14]
Kerala Films gave 2 stars and wrote "Aiyya is let down by a confused script."[15] Anupama Chopra of Hindustan Times gave 2 stars and wrote "Whackiness can't carry a film."[16] Reviewers on IMDb gave Aiyya a score of 4.4 out of 10.[17] Shilpa Jamkhandikar of India Masala gave 3 stars, praising the cast and the stories, saying "What it doesn't have is something that binds all of this together. Kundalkar makes a bizarre mash-up of several genres and ends up with a film that doesn't do too much justice to any one of them."[18]
Raghavendra Singh of FilmFare praised the movie and says "It takes courage to present something never-done-before on the larger-than-life canvas of the big screen. And surprisingly debut director (at least in Hindi films) Sachin Kundalkar shows this trait with great effect in his film Aiyyaa. Hats off to an established star, Rani Mukerji, for showing such conviction in Kundalkar's experimental vision."[19]
The songs "Aga Bai" and "Dreamum Wakupum" were chartbusters, both getting over 1 million views on YouTube in less than 1 week of being released. Both charted in the top 5 of the India's Airplay Top 100 and have been promoted strongly on TV and radio broadcasts.
Box office
Overseas
Aiyyaa was released overseas in a very limited number of theatres (30 in the United Kingdom) and did poorly in overseas markets with its opening collecting around $125,500 overseas; it averaged $4,000 in each theatre over its opening weekend. It dropped 90% the following weekend.[20]
India
Aiyya had high expectations at the box office due to aggressive advertising and rave reviews from trailers and promos alike. They were expecting 80%–100% occupancy throughout the country on its opening day and that it would collect 15–200 million on the first weekend.[citation needed]
