‘My Birthday Song’ Lacks Acting Chops

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Samir Soni’s “My Birthday Song” is supposed to be many things – including a psychological thriller and a midlife crisis drama – but it is mostly a repository of bad acting, the kind that makes you cringe every time someone on screen even tries to attempt an emotional scene.

From leading man Sanjay Suri, playing a 40 year-old ad filmmaker whose birthday party goes awry after an encounter with a woman, to Nora Fatehi, who plays that woman, everyone seems to be putting in their worst. And the mediocre script (by Soni and Vrushali Telang) doesn’t help.

Protagonist Rajeev goes through the film running like a headless chicken, unsure if the events in his life are real or imaginary. He will suddenly wake up and realise that events he thought he saw with his own eyes didn’t happen, that time has been reversed, and that nothing is as it seems.

Rajeev has strange encounters with his wife, car mechanics and women who he thought were dead. While all these are meant to project the film as a psychological thriller, neither Suri nor Soni have the acting and directing chops to pull it off.

Suri is in almost every scene and woefully inadequate – his movements are jerky and his dialogue staccato. Add to that a wafer-thin plot, excessive use of slow motion to indicate drama and a vague conclusion, and you have a film that pretty much has no redeeming qualities.