Bol Movie Review 2011

CAST :
Humaima Mlick
Atif Aslam
Iman Ali
Mahira Khan
Bol Movie Review 2011

Will Bol repeat the smashing success of Khuda Kay Liye or will it falter? If it's not a box office bonanza, it will become the first non-starter Shoaib Mansoor has seen in his career. The showman with the Midas touch hasn't had any of those. Be it making plays like Fifty Fifty or Alpha Bravo Charlie, mentoring, producing and writing lyrics for the phenomenon that were the Vital Signs, the Supreme Ishq video starring Iman Ali as a rebellious Anarkali or his debut feature Khuda Kay Liye which was the first Pakistani film in decades to pack cinema houses around the country – anything he does is a gold mine.
The reaction after the Bol premieres has been mixed. There are people who love the film for the punch it packs. Hipsters are of the opinion that it's a like a TV play and that they would rather see an entertainer. There are literary types who find Bol to be far more sophisticated and nuanced than Khuda Kay Liye which they thought was "too preachy". Of course, the select audience that attends premieres is hardly a barometer for how the film will do. In the trial runs that Geo had done before Bol's release, they found that around 80 per cent of the women in the audience had tears in their eyes by the end of the film. So they are hopeful about it being a success.
Strangely enough, there wasn't such a mixed response for Khuda Kay Liye – one remembers the general consensus about that film was that there is no way that a film without typical songs, dances and hardly any comedy would run. However the box office had other ideas. Khuda Kay Liye made history. Now it's Bol's turn to prove its mettle.
Zainab's story begins with her birth in the conservative household of a hakeem, whose father had moved to Pakistan after Partition and instead of coming to Karachi like most Delhi walas he had remained in Lahore because it reminded him of the city he called home. By the time Zainab's father the irate, ill-tempered, moralistic, fiery Maulvi Shafaatullah (Manzar Sehbai) takes over as hakeem, the age of the clinic has arrived and he is struggling to make ends meet. On the other hand, he has a wife and a quest for a son that leads to seven daughters being born, none of whom are allowed to work because of his firm belief that a woman's place is in the home. As Zainab narrates in the film "Khandaan mein log barhtay gaye aur har maheenay paisay kam parhtay gaye. (As the family members kept increasing, our monthly income kept falling short).