Gippi
CBFC Rating: U/AIn Theaters: May 10th, 2013
Runtime: 1 hour 43 minutes (103 minutes)
Strictly
For
Teenagers!
Gippi Review
- What's Good:
- Film's earnest efforts -- being a simple, straight from the heart, emotionally engaging, heart-warming teenage flick!
- What's Bad:
- Some points in the plot could have been turned better and exciting, but instead turns into all-encompassing shallowness.
- Verdict:
- 'Gippi' is a feel-good drama coupled with heart-winning story and Riya Vij being the silver lining.
- Watch or Not:
- It is an exceptionally watchable film for teenagers.
Audience Ratings for Gippi
Plot Summary
It's time to relive those precious teenage moments! The moments of friendship, the crazy crushes, the best friends and the arch rivals, the embarrassing moments, the effort to adjust to one's changing body! Watch Gippi's journey as she deals with it all. Gippi is a 14-year-old girl who lives in Simla with her mother Pappi and little brother Booboo. She is overweight and awkward and doesn't know how to handle the physical, emotional and social changes adolescence brings. In school she is a backbencher and is constantly bullied by the popular queen-bee Shamira and at home, she's trying to figure out how to deal with living in a broken home. In the middle of all this chaos, she falls madly in love with an older, brooding heartbreaker. When her love story comes to a humiliating end and she is publicly scorned, she decides to take her life in her hands and accepts Shamira's challenge to stand against her in the school elections. Whatever the final outcome might be Gippi makes sure she has a great time in the journey, filling it with delicious desserts, funny teachers, school crushes, and Shammi Kapoor dances. 'Gippi' is a coming-of-age story of an ordinary, overweight girl, who through the course of the film learns to love herself for exactly who she is. It is also a tale of an underdog who picks herself up from nothing and finds herself at the top of her own little world.
Critics Reviews for Gippi
73 Critics like this movie.
Reviews Counted: 11 | Positive Review: 8 | Negative Review: 3 | Average Rating: 2.8/5The subtlety appeals, but we wish there was more drama packed in the second half, with a better climax. Teenagers will probably find a slice of their life in Gippi, and adults might protest to such 14-somethings extreme indulgences in fashion, hot-bods and green-tea diets. Overall, a simple story that stays pre-pubescent and doesn't quite grow into the high-school of stories.
Critic Score: 3/5
The trouble is not so much with the performers but with what they are asked to do in an idiom borrowed from American teen dramas. This comes off as a mini version of the Karan Johar-directed Student Of The Year, which was itself derivative. It's nice for Gippi to be saying what it does. That fat and frumpy is not bad. That it is quite all right to be who you are, and not anyone else. That winning is not everything. But it would have been nicer if it had been said in a newer, fresher way.
Critic Score: 2/5
For all its attempts to look and feel different from the run-of-the-mill, Gippi is pretty obviously not the ultimate film about adolescence. But there is no denying that it is a warm-hearted film, if nothing else, with some nice touches that might strike an emotional chord. The crucial turning points in the plot are rather unimaginatively handled, often pushing an otherwise commendable effort into all-encompassing shallowness. Gippi is a feel-good drama and everything, even an overdose of clumsy preaching, is fair when the principal pursuit is happiness.
Critic Score: 2.5/5
There are minor hiccups in the plot; but Riya Vij’s immaculate work, in a story that is Bollywood's answer to Meg Cabot's Princess Diaries, is commendable. There isn't anything pristine in the film, but it evokes a sense of nostalgia that embeds with its story to leave a salient impact. It deserves a view for Nair's sincerity and Vij's effervescent screen presence!
Critic Score: 2.5/5
TAARE ZAMEEN PAR. STANLEY KA DABBA. CHILLAR PARTY... Several prominent film-makers have made films that transport you to your early days. Now Karan Johar takes you back to your teenage years with GIPPI, directed by first-timer Sonam Nair. GIPPI is a credible take on the 'coming-of-age' variety of movies. This one's straight from the heart. Sweet, simple, emotionally engaging, heart-warming cinema!
Critic Score: 3.5/5
A lot of this is predictable, which takes out the fun from some really well executed scenes. So when Gippi falls off her chair as her class mates giggle and poke fun, or when she struggles to get into that school uniform we know where the film is heading. There is something innocent and vulnerable about Gippi that touches a chord, but it is the unnecessary mix and match of clichéd moments and mundane dialogues that prevents the film from rising above the ordinary.
Critic Score: 2.5/5
‘Gippi’ is a trip down memory lane – a trip flanked by nostalgia and a wistful longing to get back to those days which are never coming back again. Sonam Nair’s maiden inning is a beautiful one.
Critic Score: 3/5
The tweens and teens enthralled with SOTY are going to love Gippi too. They will have a lump in their throats when it's time. They might learn a life lesson or two. And they're going to cheer for the underdog. Because they will identify. Because they are Gippi and Gippi is them.
Critic Score: 2.5/5
She is not angry or twisted enough to be a convincing adolescent. The film has the universally acceptable message that most self-help books will give you: love your flaws, love yourself. A film needs some more meat; it can’t thrive on a message. When storytelling, characterization and performance are lost, all is lost.
Gippi is a movie meant for teens. And it has all the necessary teen masala -- romance, a makeover, cheesy humour and loud music. Most adults will find Gippi boring due to its partly cheesy, partly slapstick humour. As I said the movie is simple, but good. It has comedy, drama, romance and even a little heartbreak.If you’re a loud person like me, then I suggest you pick up some friends and go and watch Gippi in a theatre. Otherwise, buy the DVD later but you will miss some great surround sound! It really is a great movie and I think the 11-21 year olds will love it.
Critic Score: 4/5
Riya Vij is spontaneous as Gippi. The mom-daughter chemistry between Riya and Divya Dutta is natural, too. But the film could have done with some solid writing, notably in the second half. Gippi is a coming-of-age flick that doesn't quite come of age.
Critic Score: 2.5/5
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©2013 Dharma Productions
