Helicopter Eela Review: An Honest And Vulnerable Depiction Of The Tribulations Of A Single Parent With Some Passionate Performances!

The film opens up to a highly spirited and cheerful Eela Raiturkar (Kajol) all geared up for her first day of college. A budding singing sensation in her early days, now her entire life seems to rotate around her son Vivaan (Riddhi Sen).This lands her up in his college as a student much to his discomfort. 

A unique take on parenting by director Pradeep Sarkar, the film forms the crux of a conflict between the two generations. The first half of the film takes us to Eela fulfilling her dreams and to the glitz of the music industry in the 90s wherein stalwarts like Anu Malik, Baba Sehgal and Ila Arun were Eela's starry inspirations to make it big. 

The writers Mitesh Shah and Anand Gandhi do an impressive job to depict Eela's ambitions as well as her dream like love story with Arun ( Tota Roy Chowdhury) which is unfortunately struck by a tragedy. The interplay between the characters is impressive and looks realistic in the first half. The music by Amit Trivedi is refreshing and pleasant to the ears with some peppy lyrics. 

Kajol steals the show with the efficient balance and realism in her performance between the carefree ambitious budding singer Eela and the helicopter mom Eela whose life revolves around her son. Her energy and vibrancy is infectious and vivacious.Tota Roy Chowdhury too impresses as Eela's doting husband though with a more one sided dominant screen presence on the first half and a weak chemistry with Kajol in the whole. Riddhi Sen does a splendid job as the perplexed son but often ends up triumphing more in the emotionally wrenching scenes rather than the light hearted ones. Neha Dhupia too performs her part with finesse even though she did not have much to perform. But one can confidently say that it is Kajol who is the sole guiding anchor of the film and breathes life in it. Her screen presence is ever charming, endearing and vulnerable at the same time. 

But the second half fails to catch hold of the anticipation and vibrancy of the first half even though it shows Eela finally breaking herself as the obsessive mother to create an identity of her own. Apart from some light hearted comic elements, the conflict in the mother child relationship does not pan out in the most realistic way. 

But watch it to experience some nostalgic crux of the mother child relationship with a quirky take on parenting which every single parent would relate to.