Dear Maya trailer: Manisha Koirala's presence seems to uplift this otherwise drab film

Manisha Koirala is doing some interesting projects. On one hand, she is playing Nargis in Rajkumar Hirani’s Sanjay Dutt biopic and on the other, collaborating with Dibakar Bannerjee for a short film in Bombay Talkies 2. However, she continues to align herself with low-budget films and lends both her star power and luminescence to them. Also read: Manisha Koirala on the Dutt biopic: 'I play Nargis ji's role not Ranbir Kapoor's mother' One such film is Sunaina Bhatnagar’s film Dear Maya, a tale that revolves around two young girls and how their life gets intertwined with a recluse named Maya who has confined herself to an isolated bungalow out of bitterness. She decided to quit socialising when no prospective suitor was willing to marry her. [caption id=“attachment_3426374” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Manisha Koirala in Dear Maya. Youtube screengrab.[/caption] Dejected, she recedes to solitude for 20 years until two girls decide to infuse life into her world again. They write her letters from a past suitor confessing his love for Maya. Maya finds a new reason to live and heads off in search of her secret admirer. While the two girls initially keep blaming each other for misleading her, they reunite six years later to trace Maya who had gone missing years ago. The two girls are too loud and at the same time, so bland that their excitement never becomes contagious. It remains confined to their superficiality and comes across as synthetic. The jerky rushes of their fight does not help the narrative either. But what drives the fairly interesting plot is the presence of a star who is not afraid of toning down her cosmetic look in order to look her part and at the same time leave the audience spellbound with her aura. Look out for that scene when she opens the windows of her deserted bungalow to let some light in. Her smile feels like the crack of dawn and lights up our lives as well. Dear Maya is slated to release on 2 June.