Most of the cinephiles out there like me would know that there is a film festival going on at the moment by the name We are One, wherein over a 100 films from different film festivals would be screened over a period of 9 days. This film festival is the first digital film festival to premiere on YouTube for Free. This is where I got to watch the film Eeb Allay Ooo which was officially selected from MAMI (Mumbai Film Festival). Yes, this had premiered last year at MAMI and it was Anurag Kashyap who had tweeted about it, which made me want to watch it even more(his last recommendation was the brilliant Aamis). And so with high expectations, I watched Eeb Allay Ooo, was it worth it, stick around.

Eeb Allay Ooo! is the story of a migrant who lands a job of a monkey repeller in Delhi. The story is outstanding. The screenplay is so well written and tightly knit, it showcases the class divide in our daily lives which may not easily meet our eye. It forces us to be intellectual with this movie, yet also sympathize with the main protagonist. The absurdity at the end is compared to a monkey rather seamlessly. Also what begins as a light satire with man pitched against a monkey, soon transforms into man v/s man. Whatever, I write about the screenplay will actually not do justice to it! The dialogues are sharp. The background score is outstanding. Debutant director Prateek Vats has done an outstanding job with such a layered subject, full marks to his awesome direction.

Naina Sareen(as Anjani’s companion) in a small cameo shows that she is a natural. Mahender Nath, who actually is a monkey repeller and who plays himself, is a non actor and boy is he good. Sometimes, the best of actors are non actors! Nutan Sinha(as Anjani’s sister) is pitch perfect. Shashi Bhushan as her husband also grts moments to shine. Shardul Bharadwaj as Anjani is a simple looking easy to like guy and he has delivered an outstanding performance, simply superb.

Standing at just 96 minutes, Eeb Allay Ooo is offbeat yet an outstanding watch. If you are still wondering what does Eeb Allay Ooo signify, it is the sound to shoo off a monkey. This film was a part of the We Are One film festival on youtube available for free and the film was removed after 24 hours from the time of the premiere, But it has a theatrical release this week! Please do yourself a favour and do not miss it! Highly Highly Recommended.