Subhrojeet Chakraborty (Sushant Singh) is the newly appointed creative director in Lalaji Telefilms which is owned by Ms. Anekta Kapoor (Jyoti Gauba) in the film Idiot Box. He is brought in to the company for a special purpose which is to uplift the falling TRP (Television Rating Points) of an ongoing TV Serial of Anekta Kapoor’s company which is titled as “Kabhi yeh Kabhi Woh” consisting of 52 episodes. Idiot Box movie review…
His lady boss Anekta Kapoor has promised a hefty pay packet, a secured job, a well furnished apartment, a chauffer driven car if he succeeds in the challenge of increasing the popularity of the TV soap. And if he fails, he gets a return ticket to Kolkata, his hometown.
Anekta Kapoor (Jyoti Gauba) is considered to be the queen of Indian television as she has changed the entire face of Indian television. Her company ‘Lalaji Telefilms’ is the producer of 39 ongoing shows on different television channels. She believes in hardcore entertainment to her audience and refuses to believe in any kind of logical approach to any incident in her serials.
She’s called as ‘tyrant’, ‘dictator’ etc by people working for her and around her. But in her heart she believes that without these qualities she would not have managed a successful establishment like Lalaji Telefilms.
Isn’t this too analogous to a currently successful Television Production company in India and its lady boss?
Anyway, Subhrojeet’s mission now is to find a completely new angle and track for the serial which has to hook the viewers, save his job and make him win this challenge.
Upon seeing the earlier episodes of the serial to incorporate a new track, he finds himself in a jam. Since all the necessary tracks of the saas-bahu saga, extra marital affairs, dead man coming back, twenty year leap etc, etc have already been used several times by Anekta Kapoor. His confidence and creativity comes to a standstill and is completely blank and in dearth of new ideas, when he meets a bunch of people around him.
Sumana Roychowdhury (Hrishita Bhatt), a Bengali girl working in a pharma company in Mumbai. She rubbishes the trend in TV soaps which show “America foiled with Indian sentiments…” Which Indian woman changes her husband five times? It’s a wrong message the Indian electronic media is sending to the society – is exactly her view. Sumana is an intelligent woman of today with simplicity, and she has smartness with value systems and practicality with tenderness.
There is also Brij Bhushan Matondkar (Milind Gunaji) is a happy go lucky person in the film Idiot Box with an out look towards the bright side of life. This habit gets him entangled into a confusing situation because of his friendly nature and striking conversation with strangers.
Sangamitra (Sangamitra) is a world tourist cum travelogue writer and she too has a positive outlook in life.
T.V. Mirchandani (Upasana Singh) is a spinster who not only is an avid television viewer but also lives with the character of her favourite daily soaps. She is extremely warm, affectionate and welcoming in the day time, but her door is always shut in the evenings as she wouldn’t want to miss her serials.
Karunasindhu Jagatpati (Surendra Pal), an ex forest officer is the secretary of building where Subhrojeet, Sumana and Mirchandani reside. He out rightly dislikes the Saas Bahu sagas and suggests Subhrojeet to induce some touching, daring and even scary twists in the TV serial.
How Subhrojeet Chakraborty finishes the episodes going through unexpected situations is what the story of Idiot Box all about…
Cast of Idiot Box:
Hrishita Bhatt – Sumana Roychowdhury
Sushant Singh – Subhrojeet Chakraborty
Reema Lagoo
Jyoti Gauba – Anekta Kapoor
Surendra Pal – Karunasindhu Jagapati
Milind Gunaji – Brij Bhushan Matondkar
Upasana Singh – T. V. Mirchandani
Sangamitra – Sangamitra
Credits & Crew of Idiot Box:
Banner – Ramas Movie Maker, Sri Rachna Arts
Producer – Shivnarayan B. Singh
Story Screenplay & Direction – Sunanda Mitra
Dialogues – Ajay Khamosh
Music – Anand Miland
Lyrics – Sameer
Singers – Shaan, Sunidhi Chauhan, Sangeet Haldipur, Harshdeep
Co-producers – Jyotsna Sapkale, Sushila Pathak
Cinematography – Sudesh Kotian
Editing – Sanjay Verma
Associate Director – Rajendra Sharma
Song Recording – Satish Gupta (Krishna Audio)
Production Design – Ashish Maity
Public Relations – Peter Martis
Publicity Stills – Ashok Mehta
Choreography – Ricky Gupta, Jojo
Costumes – Kavita Sunita Creations & Shefalina
Production Controller – Prashant Dwivedi
Direction Dept – Sanjib Ghosh, Bharati Tiwari, Rachna Sapkale, Rajkumar Pandey
Camera Dept – Rishikesh Kandalgaonkar, Haresh Sawant, Subroto, Somnath, Jeetendra, Rashid
Publicity – School D’zine
Idiot Box, movie review