Even by conservative estimates, one expected an opening of around 30%-50% for ‘Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi‘. However that was not to be the case as the occupancy hovered under the 30% mark till the evening shows on the opening Friday and grew only marginally as the weekend progressed. Huge footfalls were not really on the cards for this Bela Sehgal film that was made on a restricted budget and didn’t quite boast of a big screen canvas. Still, going by a good response to the initial talkie promos, one expected better.
Farah Khan and Boman Irani Movie Stills
What worked for the film to some extent was decent word of mouth that allowed this Boman Irani-Farah Khan starrer to grow over the weekend. Though the jumps weren’t magnificently high, they were still noticeable enough to allow ‘Shirin Farhad Ki Toh Nikal Padi‘ a decent total of 6 crore weekend. While this is now indicating that the costs of this small budget film may be recovered, the total is definitely less than what even the makers would have expected to begin with.
Also, given the fact that some of the small budget films like ‘Vicky Donor‘, ‘Paan Singh Tomar‘, ‘Tere Naal Love Ho Gaya‘, ‘Hate Story‘ and ‘Blood Money‘ amongst others have done well this year, ‘Shirin Farhad….’ with a much bigger name like Sanjay Leela Bhansali associated with it could have covered a larger distance.
The silver lining though is in the form of performances. Boman Irani and debutant Farah Khan are the real reasons that allowed the film to hold on some extent at the least. They have been appreciated by the audience and while Boman can be expected to be as versatile as ever in films to come, one waits to see whether Farah decides to be a little more prolific in front of the camera fro this point on.
