Kishmish review: Animated visuals can't save this dated love story

Rahool Mukherjee’s film Kishmish, starring Dev Adhikari and Rukmini Maitra, is a story of two lovers, who are desperate to get married. However, problems arise when they set out to convince each other’s parents and they realize that before they tie the knot, an unfinished love story from the past must be resolved.

Tintin (Adhikari) apparently aspires to be a cartoonist; however, we hardly see him dedicate his time to his passion. The youth’s mother (Anjana Basu) supports him but advises him to complete his studies first to make his father (Kharaj Mukherjee) happy.

Adhikari's character is finally admitted to a college in Darjeeling with his father’s help and after spending his early days as a loner, he falls in love with Rohini (Maitra). The young woman turns him down at first but eventually, his persistence wins her over.

Instead of focusing on their careers, the couple decides to convince their parents to give them their blessings. But a secret involving their parents turns into a big obstacle to their union. Tintin and Rohini take it upon themselves to resolve the conflict.

While Tintin is hardly seen honing his craft, the film is filled with animated visuals that don’t make a difference to the dated storyline. In the film, almost all the characters fail to understand each other, while only Rohini’s mother (June Malia) and Tintin’s father seem to be committed to their respective marriages.

The dialogues lack quality and sense. The screenplay turns extremely monotonous in the second half, with all the characters refusing to change their silly ways. Then suddenly a bunch of actors — including Rituparna Sengupta, Jisshu Sengupta and Paran Bandopadhyay —  pop up out of nowhere, seemingly to promote their own films and stretch the length of Kishmish unnecessarily.

While Maitra delivers the dialogues decently, no matter how many times Adhikari attempts to make light of his own diction, his flat dialogue delivery is not funny.

Only Basu creates some dramatic emotional moments while Kharaj Mukherjee also rises above the lacklustre script, providing comic relief throughout.

Modhura Palit’s cinematography is quite monotonous and editor Amit Ray could have perhaps tried to make the film less wearisome.

The song 'Oboseshe' by Arijit Singh and Shashwat Singh and Nikhita Gandhi's number 'Janina Bhalolaga' have been beautifully composed by Nilayan Chatterjee and are the only quality content in the film.

Kishmish is underwhelming in light of what was promised in the trailer. The film doesn't even reflect the chemistry of Adhikari and Maitra, who are a real-life couple.