SINGLE SALMA makes an important comment but falls flat

Single Salma Review 1.5/5 & Review Rating

Director: Nachiket Samant

Single Salma Movie Review Synopsis:
SINGLE SALMA is the story of an independent woman. 33-year-old Salma Rizvi (Huma Qureshi) works in the municipal department of Lucknow and lives with her father (Kanwaljit Singh), mother and brother Subhan (Sachin Kavetham). The family is dependent on Salma completely. She’s the only working person in the family and she also helped her elder sisters get married. Their ancestral house is mortgaged and Salma is trying her best to pay back all the dues to the corrupt real estate giant, Rastogi (Sharad Raj Singh). The pressure to get married compels Salma to go for arranged marriage meetups, but she fails to find even a remotely decent match. Finally, she comes across Sikandar Khan (Shreyas Talpade), a semi-literate man who runs an apparel shop. Salma is impressed by his humility and struggles and agrees to marry him. This is when she is asked to go to London for two months as part of the Lucknow Smart City project. Her family is against the idea, but Sikandar encourages her to take the plunge. In London, Salma works equally hard and also finds the much-needed independence. She also meets Meet Singh (Sunny Singh) and before she realizes, she is attracted to him. What happens next forms the rest of the film.

Single Salma Movie Story Review:
Amina Khan and Ravi Kumar’s story is very promising. But Amina Khan and Ravi Kumar’s screenplay is bland and gives a déjà vu of certain films. Mudassar Aziz’s dialogues add to the fun, but such one-liners are also few and far between.

Nachiket Samant’s direction fails to entice. To give credit where it’s due, the message is easy to understand and comes across in a simple and concise manner. Secondly, a few scenes stand out like Salma and Sikandar’s first meet, Salma’s day at the beach, Sikandar bashing up Babban (Shiv Kanungo), Salma’s clarification, etc.

On the flipside, the film moves at a slow pace. In the absence of sufficient humour and drama, the narrative becomes too dry. The overall track of Salma enjoying in a non-judgmental environment reminds one of QUEEN [2014] while Sikandar’s speech seems inspired by Akshay Kumar’s broken English lecture sequence in PAD MAN [2018]. A few developments are silly. Salma’s picture goes viral and even her family is aware of it. But Salma doesn’t get a whiff of it at all and she learns about it only once she’s home from the trip. The makers tried to give a hatke conclusion to the story. However, the finale fails to have the desired impact.

Single Salma – Title Track | Huma Qureshi, Shreyas Talpade, Sunny Singh | Sohail S, Shahid, Nachiket

Single Salma Movie Review Performances:
Huma Qureshi tries a bit too hard to be serious in the initial scenes, but gets better later on. She proves her worth in the dialogue-heavy scenes, especially. Shreyas Talpade is impressive from the first scene itself. Sunny Singh’s accent appears a bit awkward initially. Yet, he passes muster, thanks to his overall performance. Kanwaljit Singh is dependable as always, while Sachin Kavetham leaves a huge mark. Nidhi Singh (Ratna), Aasif Khan (Rajiv), Lauren Gottlieb (Zoya) and Navni Parihar (Nirmala Shrivastav) are highly memorable. Sharon Drain (Taranjeet’s partner), Sunny Gill (Taranjeet; Meet’s grandfather), Devasheesh (Trumpet Raja), Shiv Kanungo and Sharad Raj Singh manage to make their presence felt. Akanksha Pandey (Shabana; Salma’s sister) and Digvijay Pratap Singh (Nitesh) don’t get much scope.

Single Salma movie music and other technical aspects:
None of the songs – the title track, ‘Saiyaan Re Aaja Saiyaan’, ‘Drive Me Krazy’, ‘Sun Rahe Ho Na’ and ‘Bepaarwah’ – are memorable. The background score is well-woven into the narrative.

Andrew Boulter’s cinematography captures the locales of Lucknow and London with finesse. Tariq Umar Khan’s production design is realistic. Veera Kapur Ee’s costumes are authentic and the change in Salma’s wardrobe is depicted convincingly. Ashish Tripathi and Abhishek Anand’s editing should have been fast-paced.

Single Salma Movie Review Conclusion:
On the whole, SINGLE SALMA makes an important comment but falls flat due to the slow-moving narrative and an unimpressive climax. At the box office, it has got a token release of sorts and will largely go unnoticed.