The Promise and Aloo Bhujia are heartwarming slice-of-life stories about love, relationships, and cherishing those close to you!

Tigmanshu Dhulia’s The Promise and Lakshmi Iyer’s Aloo Bhujia were bittersweet stories just like our real lives. Here’s what we liked about both the films!

Under the category of ‘Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films’ come two wholesome 10 minute short films at MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Apart from the duration, both the films are set in a bar with two characters having meaningful conversations. Both the movies also have a unique ending to them that leave you contemplating a lot of things. Here’s what stayed with us in hindsight!

The Promise review: George Batra (Jim Sarbh), a bartender, meets a woman (Priyamani), who he instantly falls for, and life takes an unexpected turn for him. The two hit it off and in the short period of time that they had together, they hooked up, but also understood each other like no other. When George gets the opportunity to work on his dream start up project, his girlfriend decides that they should part ways instead of being in a long distance relationship. Hesitant to let go, George only agrees to this when she tells him that 20 years later they’ll meet at the same bar he worked at and at the same spot. So keeping his end of the promise, George makes it to the same bar 20 years later, only to find out that his girlfriend died of cancer. Much to his shock and surprise, she had left him something he would’ve never even thought about.

Also Read: Focus South Asia 2 at MAMI Mumbai Film Festival features short films on privacy in marriage, queerness in India, illegal poaching and more!

Tigmanshu Dhulia who is popularly known for his action films like Paan Singh Tomar and Saheb, Biwi aur Gangster, steps out of his comfort genre, and makes his romantic film debut with this one. Then there’s Jim Sarbh, who looks like an absolute eye candy in the film and Priyamani, who brings an emotional nuance to the story. In the film, Dhulia has left easter eggs of another film called ‘Ziaggo’. It’s not just the DVD that Priyamani gives Jim Sarbh in the film because of his Italian heritage but it also sort of follows the same storyline. In Ziaggo, the mother of the male lead could play an instrument which now his own daughter can. Also just like Ziaggo, in this film, the daughter has the same name as her grandmother, and it sure was a unique twist towards the end. I also loved how monochrome was used to show the scenes in the future as compared to how it is usually used to show flashbacks. It shows that he is still stuck in that memory of the time that they spent together. With good cinematography and background music, Tigmanshu Dhulia’s ‘The Promise’ is a simple story that says a plethora of things in just those 10 minutes.

Aloo Bhujia review: At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt frustrated with mom's constant interference in our lives. And in that very frustration, we end up saying rather mean things to her. Aloo Bhujia keeps that mirror of reality in front of us and makes us look at how disrespectful we look when we are out of line while speaking to mom. The film starts with Sanjay (Ranvijay Singha) sitting alone at a bar, when a young guy in his early twenties enters looking for a phone to call his mom. When Sanjay lends him his phone, he overhears the boy arguing loudly with his mother about how she can’t stop bothering him with his questions and he asks her to just leave him alone. Sanjay calmly asks the boy to put himself in his mother’s shoes and understand why she is the way she is. He asks him to keep her as close to him as possible, and spend a lot of time with her. He asks him what he likes about his mom, to which the boy replies, "Her weird way of eating Aloo Bhujia". It is towards the end of the film that you find out that Sanjay was imagining his younger self, and now he happily eats Aloo Bhujia next to his old mother. It is a parallel between the past and the present version of himself. 

Directed by Lakshmi Iyer and produced by Gul Panag, the film gives you a much needed reminder about looking at your mother as a human being who is just figuring her life out, rather than just looking at her as an intruding parent. It feels like it is trying to encourage the newer generation, especially boys, to be more sensitive and kinder towards emotions. Just like ‘The Promise’, Aloo Bhujia too has a background score that just elevates the story and helps you connect to the characters better as an audience. 

The Promise and Aloo Bhujia premiered at the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival this year!

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