ILU ILU 1998 (Marathi film) is an oft repeated story of a 14- year-old student, Aniket, (Nishant Bhavsar) who falls head over heels in love with his new English teacher Madhuri Pinto (Elli Avram). Aniket is infatuated enough to desire to marry his teacher.
Aniket, the boy at a Marathi medium boy school, experiences first love when the modern English teacher, Madhuri Pinto, joins. Infatuated, Aniket studies harder and even begins to watch English movies to impress her. On Valentine`s Day, he plans to confess his feelings. However, a sketch of Madhuri is found in the school toilet, leading to an unexpected twist in the story.
The director of ILU ILU 1998also conveniently weaves in a scene wherein Madhuri has an argument with her father, in which she insists that she will marry only the man of her choice, even though he is much younger and belongs to another religion, an exchange that Ani over-hears. His teenage brother also falls for a fellow classmate of his.
To add to their mother Sangeeta Surve’s (Veena Jamkar) woes, their father, a married, middle-aged banker, Milind Surve, (Srikant Yadav) develops the seven year itch some 21 years after being married, getting smitten by a new, attractive neighbor, who turns out to be a classmate of his sister, back in school. The English school teacher, Madhuri Pinto, who has relocated from Goa to Pune is a stunner.
A coherent plausible plot is noticeable by its absence, and the culprit of the loose, wishy-washy screenplay which reminds the viewer of The Summer of 42 is story-screenplay-dialogue writer Nitin Sindhuvijay Supekar.
Even while almost all the actors vie with one each other to go over the top, and it is well-nigh impossible to judge their acting abilities, credit ought to go to Elli Avram for having lived up to the difficult challenge of getting into her character of Madhuri Pinto including dubbing herself in Marathi with effortless ease , in spite of being a Swede.
The other actors including Shrikant Yadav (as Milind Surve), Veena Jamkar (Sangeeta Surve), Kamlakar Satpute (Jadhav), Vanita Kharat (Mrs. Jadhav), Ankita Lande (Nisha Dekhane) and Mira Jaganath (Hema) succeed in enlivening their respective characters, while on the technical side, Rohit Nagbhide scores lilting and catchy music. Sujit Kumar impresses as the cinematographer.
– Review by Jyothi Venkatesh
Cast of ILU ILU 1998:
Elli AvrRam as Ms Pinto
Nishant Bhavsar as Aniket Surve
Mira Jagannath as Hema Desai
Shrikant Yadav as Milind Surve
Veena Jamkar as Sangeeta Surve
Ankita Lande as Nisha Dekhane
Gaurav Kalushte as Ashish Surve
Yash Sanas as Chikya
Soham Kalokhe as Lalya
Aarya Kakade as Joshi
Siddhesh Lingayat as Rakshash
Ananda Karekar as Pawar sir
Vanita Kharat as Jadhav bai
Kamlakar Satpute as Jadhav saheb
Aroh Welankar
Anushka Pimputkar
Credits of ILU ILU 1998:
Production company – Phalke Films Entertainment Productions
Directed by Ajinkya Phalke
Written by Nitin Supekar
Produced by Balasaheb Phalke, Hindavi Phalke
Cinematography Yogesh Koli
Edited by Nitesh Rathod
Music by Rohit Nagbhide, Vijay Narayan Gavande