Piku

Spoilers (mild) ahead:
Piku is the reason why some sane people still find it in them to cheer for Bollywood.

The movie is named after the lead character, Deepika Padukone, who is a single woman living with her annoying, cantankerous and hypochondriac father.

The father is Amitabh Bachchan, who has shown, once again, why he is the lord of the silver screen.  

Director Shoojit Sircar is obviously as Bengali as the double oo-s in his name, and knows his subject like the back of his hand. 
His story telling devices are clever and pithy—he has to use Bachchan and Padukone for main leads, which could lead to accent issues notwithstanding the actors’  exemplary efforts to not sound fake.  So, Piku and her father are Delhi-based Bengalis. There, now the slight slips in accent are not as misplaced at all. The broad swaths are taken care of by the actors and the director, who, I presume, made sure no one says “rasugulla” and “kolkotta” and gets away with it.

Bengalis and Kolkata have been done justice, with their badminton and rolls, alpona and bindis and that inherent pride that is so hard to shake off.

There, important basics fixed and out of the way, Piku goes on to tell a story about an everyday, common working woman of today. The story is about how there are little things in her, as are there in her father and her friend, that make their (and by extension, our) ordinary lives not so ordinary.

Bachchan’s Bhashkor (emphasis on “o”) Banerjee is an annoying man. He is a nag and a hypochondriac of the first order, who likes to talk about his bowel movements with all and sundry. Sircar’s choice of ailment for Bachchan is apt—the food loving Bengali constantly suffers from digestive trouble.

But he also surprises the younger and more modern Irrfan Khan with his views on marriage and why he would rather his daughter first lived her life and then tied the knot, if at all.

Bhashkor Banerjee is a classic example of the old man who can use age as an excuse to spell out bitter truths to the family and get away with it. Things he would not, or did not talk about when he was younger.  His heart is in the right place, but he has reached a point in life where he does not and need to put up with nosy neighbours, annoying relatives or social mores.  So, he won’t.

Irrfan Khan is the able third wheel in the father-daughter equation, the helping hand who can sometimes fight for Piku when her father crosses the line, the outsider who can out-yell the family  into silence.

Don’t be misled by my calling him the third wheel—he is that only in the equation of the movie, because the movie is about Piku and her father. Khan more than holds his own in the quirky triangle that this movie is.

Top marks to Padukone for playing the part of Piku to the hilt. It is heartening to see what she can do when she decides not to run around SRK in tiny clothes.

So Piku is Everywoman, and every woman will relate to her in bits and pieces. She is the heroine, but she works hard at an often demanding job,  has to look after the house, has baai issues to resolve, has a father to look after, goes out with friends for a drink and worries about finding the right man for herself. She also admits to being about 30, without batting an eyelid.

Piku admits to having sex, terrorizes taxi drivers, yells at her father a lot, but mothers him as well.

In that relationship lies the quiet calm of the movie, the underlying sense of warmth that transcends what could have easily been a supremely bitter family experience.

 Piku says, at one point, “we can’t judge our parents.”  In Sircar’s movie, both father and daughter act with that basic understanding in place—he knows she is around to take care of him no matter how much he embarrasses her, she knows he will love her the most no matter how much she screams her head off at him.

With that foundation in place, the movie uses various devices to make it an interesting journey, often surprising the jaded Bollywood audience.

When Piku, Father and Third Wheel start on a journey, you could be forgiven for thinking that travel is how they will resolve all their issues and find inner peace. But, try again. 
They travel, but there are no emotional upheavals that make father and daughter weep their anxieties away. They keep doing their own things and drive the third person nuts in the process, but without loss of love.

Because, if every road trip turned out to be a life changing experience, the world would be a very different place, no?

There is a scene where a drunk Bachchan comes home and starts twisting to a popular Bengali number. You almost expect the daughter, who had stormed off the same party because she was annoyed with the father, to get up and join him, thus resolving differences. She doesn't, and there is no sappy “beta, but I love you”s.

Seeing her father dance, Piku gets up and shuts her door, albeit smiling to herself. That is how Sircar strikes a chord.

The setting of a Bengali family with no mother makes the movie believable:

 Where else would you find a woman of thirty not being hammered daily with marriage proposals? The mother’s place is taken over by Moushumi Chatterjee as the maashi, who diligently tries to push the wedding agenda, but is thwarted by the dad.

There is love, but in the very Indian style where there is not much physical manifestation of it. Like I said, there are no “I love you beta” moments, but an unshakable understanding that love exists between father and daughter. 

When Piku cries after her dad is taken ill, you could feel squeamish, remembering the many times your parent or a loved one might have complained about a problem and you've not paid attention.

In that, and other things, Piku is not a film that can assure you all’s well with the world. But then again, maybe in just that, it does.

NH10

                                                                       

Spoilers ahead.

With NH10, Anushka Sharma has clearly stolen a march over all her contemporaries, who will now have to spend months and months to catch up.

Here’s what happened: while Deepika Padukone was busy being fighting on Twitter for her rights to dress as she liked and Parineeti Chopra was teaching ignorant journalists what periods are all about, Sharma was nowhere in the news. She didn’t create a storm with her opinion on the AIB roast, no one used her as an idol to fight against skinniness and most critics (including me, initially), were ready to write her off as the one who can only do the Dilli ki ladki routine.

That is, until now.  So while all her contemporaries were busy championing modern womanhood while constantly playing props to heroes in extremely bad quality movies (Padukone’s Happy New Year, anything Sonakshi Sinha has acted in except for Lootera, and the younger Chopra’s Dawat e Ishq), Sharma took up Jaggu in PK, with cropped hair and no affectations.

 Parineeti Chopra tried that a bit in Hasee Toh Phasee but since that was more misuse of the look than use, PK’s Jaggu won hands down. 

Then came NH10, in which she joined hands with a bunch of people including Anurag Kashyap and gave us a movie that has zero Bollywood clichés. OK, near-zero Bollywood clichés.

Dear Anushka Sharma, I doubt you can resist all along, but please don’t go back to being  arm candy instantly.

There is no happy ending in NH10. There is no deus ex machina that can save the day. There is a lot of darkness, no mincing of words and no effort to soften the blows for the audience. And the best part? There are no jarring item numbers to ensure the audience goes home happy, or slyly weaved in sexy shots of women’s bodies to “cut the tension”. 

NH10 is a story of the two Indias that economists, politicians and social reformers are at a loss of how to reconcile.  It is the story of what happens when through accident and foolhardiness, residents of the democratic India run into people from Khap Panchayat lands.

Sharma’s Meera is the person you and I and most people we know are —she has a well paying job, can look after herself, can take on misogynistic colleagues as needed and is married to a person who makes her happy, to whom she complains about having to attend parties.

One night on her way to work, she is believably (because it is Gurgaon) accosted by goons, after which her husband, Arjun (played by Neil Bhoopalam) buys her a gun for protection.

And that’s that, until they are on a road trip that goes terribly awry. The young couple is placed square in the middle of the kind of situation we all pray never to be faced with and only read about in newspapers. In the hinterland of Haryana, there’s an honour killing. Arjun’s bravado makes them targets of crazed goons who want them dead.

Director Navdeep Singh obviously knows the Jatland extremely well. And those who remember Manorama Six Feet Under will remember he can do thrillers well too.

Join the two together and you will get the picture.  Singh’s characters are well rounded, right from the village sarpanch to the police officer to the leader of the goon pack, who thinks nothing of hacking his sister to death but wails like a child on losing his brother.

NH10 also does not treat the audience like they are stupid—there are no long dialogues/monologues to spell out what is happening or will happen. The show, don’t tell, works fantastically in the sequence where we see the Haryanvi, writhing with pain, still bristling on seeing a woman smoking.  Or in the final sequence, where despite the horror of it all, you’ll still appreciate the absolute lack of high drama from Sharma.

There’s one tiny problem I see with the movie, and it’s nothing to do with the cast and crew, but with storytelling.

 NH10 could not have picked a better time for its release, what with all the angst against the banning of the BBC documentary.  While I absolutely love that this movie was made, to my mind, it would have been a perfect 10 if the makers could have found a way to unequivocally put across the thought, that there’s no greatness or pride in following the demonic tenets of the Khap-ruled hinterlands, even if those are centuries old rules.

Like the policeman in the movie, there’re a lot of people out there who believe “Gurgaon mein jahaan yeh aakhri mall khatam hote hain na, wahin aapki democracy aur constitution bhi khatam ho jaata hain.” In varying degrees, at least. 

My fear is of those people. That there could be a chance smart dialogues like these turn into some sort of validation for those real-life policemen who truly roam the lands, making the perpetrators into heroes, the same way SRK’s dysfunctional  Rahul in Darr (or any similar movie) stoked the imagination of many street side stalkers.  All women who grew up in the 90s will have some idea of what I’m talking about, no?

                                                                         

Roy.

                                                                       

If you haven’t watched, don’t read, for the makers of Roy have tried to bill it as a romantic mystery. 

You know what I think my biggest beef with Roy is? That they cheated the audience by advertising it as a Ranbir Kapoor movie, when in fact it is an Arjun Rampal movie. Kapoor is in it in a “dynamic role”, whatever that is supposed to mean.

Now, I understand why they would do that. Who in their right minds would want to pay multiplex ticket rates for Rampal and Jacqueline Fernandez? But I’m still bristling from the blatant cheating.

If you've read enough mystery novels or watched similar movies, it is going to take you 10 minutes to get to the bottom of the so called plot. If you've not, but are a reasonably attentive and logical person, it should still take you no more than 20 minutes to correctly predict what the Big Twist in the movie is.

 And that’s the thing with thrillers, you see. If you can tell whodunnit, what is the point?  There could have still been a point if there was enough Kapoor, or a well told story in the entire exercise.  But no.  I don’t know what director Vikramjit Singh was aiming for, but someone should tell him “high art” is only possible when there is some actual substance to it.

Roy looks mature—it is a quiet film, which is a welcome change from Bollywood’s melodrama and garish colours. But that’s about it. The entire film feels fake—the characters talk like some of Deepak Chopra’s tweets, a string of heavy or deep sounding words that lie next to each other without really meaning much.  Sometimes they even sound like Salman Khan’s tweets.

The protagonist is a super successful movie director, who has built his empire on the success of the franchise of a movie called Guns. There’s Guns 1, then Guns 2, and now he is writing Guns 3, over which he is breaking major sweat. Guns is, as you can imagine, about guns, heists and the like.

Besides being the director, he is also obviously the screenwriter, or the movie won’t be.

I can’t remember if they mention that important difference, but since I might have drifted in and out of sleep because the movie was so boring, I’m letting that slide.  

Now for more important questions.  You’re writing a story called Guns 3, which is about robberies, for Bollywood. Do you really need to go to Malaysia to seek inspiration for this? 

Deep breath. He’s a rich guy, and rich guys can afford to do such things. So let that slide too.

I’m not sure what time period Roy’s set in, but Rampal the director/writer uses a typewriter and wears a Fedora, even indoors.  There is a scene where he puts the thinking Fedora on just before he starts typing away. I am laughing even as I write about it, same as I did in the theatre and I don't think Singh was trying to be funny in that scene.

Anyway, because Roy is no Mad Men, said Fedora fails to add to style and sophistication. Ok, there are moments where Rampal does look handsome in the hat, but then he is a handsome man with or without. And even Don Draper wouldn't wear those indoors, because you know, manners.

While Rampal nee Kabir Grewal is struggling to write his story about a robbery, he runs into filmmaker  Ayesha Amir, who is Fernandez in a pair of glasses, which I am thinking is an attempt to make her look like the creative type. 

There is a romance. Set in picturesque Malaysia, there is another romance. Roy is the name of the protagonist of Guns 3. So when they say Ranbir Kapoor is in a “dynamic role”, it could have meant that he isn’t a real character. He’s fiction within fiction. So fictitious Roy’s love interest is Fernandez again, this time dressed in expensive, sophisticated clothes, portraying Tia.

They are careful not to show the neck tattoos that the director Fernandez sports, on Tia. Tia is rich and has a painting that Roy steals and then is miserable because he loves her and cheated her.

Ayesha reads books. Kabir sends him one and buys her drinks. Tia rides horses, Roy … well I can’t remember. I think he just stares at her. This is all meant to be very intellectual, by the way, because these sequences are peppered with lines like "Hum insaan hamesha kisi aur ki zindagi churake jeena chahtey hain", or the infitinely more conundrum like "Kya tum woh ho jo log kehte hain ya jo log kehtey hain woh banne ki koshish kar rahe ho."

 Then, when reel and real romance meet, you are meant to gasp. Only, I can't fathom why the movie makers thought it would be gasp worthy at all, because they have already told us Rampal is writing a story and have introduced Kapoor right as he talks about the protagonist, in true Bollywood cliche style, lest you miss the correlation.

Speaking of, Singh has crammed so many of these cliches, or symbolism if you will, into the movie I think it's a miracle my head did not explode.  Examples?

Rampal and Kapoor are both sad (since the author makes his protagonist go through the exact same feelings he is experiencing) and don't know what lies ahead. Hence, Roy is on a boat, adrift. I've already told you about the thinking hat bit. Rampal talks about the trials of fame and has a goldfish in a bowl for a pet.

If they were honest and made a low-brow masala potboiler, these tropes could have passed on as an attempt to lift the movie up. At best, no one would care. 
But Singh is trying to make this into a highly intellectual movie and is so caught up in making the packaging look good, he forgets to put anything in the box.

So we have to live with the fact that a very rich guy wants to make Guns 3 and needs inspiration for it. He can afford to spend a lot of money and go to Malaysia, so he does. The rich guy is either schizophrenic or the director is just enacting Guns 3 in a parallel setting, but there are so many bits that don't make sense. We are expected to let it all slide in the name of director's/poetic licence, I suppose.

But you will have realised, that is "letting slide" all of the movie.

I really want to know what made Ranbir Kapoor sign this project. Maybe it was the "dynamic role" and maybe once we decipher what that really means, it will all become as clear as daylight and everyone will understand what the point of this movie was.

                                                             

                                                             
                                                             

pk

                                                       

                                                                 

 By now, the storyline isn’t a secret any more, but if you’ve still not watched pk, don’t read on, for there are spoilers ahead.

pk is a brave movie, simply for the issue it takes up.  By now, anyone who walks in for a  Rajkumar Hirani movie has some set standards and expectations. Namely, it will take up a social cause and present it to us in a manner that makes for enjoyable cinema.

In pk, Hirani takes a huge leap. From talking about ill mannered chimps who disguise themselves as gentlemen to the rotting of our education system, he decides to take the bull by the horn and talk about the root of all evil in this country: religion. And no, despite the many parallels between Oh My God, what Hirani does here is much bigger, for he does not restrict himself to the comforts of nitpicking into his own faith and belief. The problem is not contained in any one faith in this country, and the movie is bold enough to say as much.

But we live in the times of nonsense (I mean it quite literally), and that is Hirani and co writer Abhijat Joshi’s albatross. In catering to that I think they might have slipped, in execution, but never once in intent.  

Religion is such a deeply ingrained practice in people that it takes an alien to point out its fallacies. Mostly because of the volatility that ranges and shifts violently between hardcore extremism and hyper sensitivity (especially among Hindus who immediately rise up to champion the cause of other faiths and say how wrong it was to drill holes in them). If you’ve watched closely you’d see no one was doing that in the movie. The point of the movie was to hold a mirror to the rotten stink of all religions, and so it did.  Secularism does not mean one religion has to be mollycoddled over another. It is the belief that religion should not be involved with the day to day social and political activities of a country.

Anyway, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get on with the movie. The alien device is thus  brilliant, because which inhabitant of this country (or even this world) could otherwise be completely unbiased in challenging religious sentiments? No, not even you, no matter how much you shake your head at me now. 

But other than that, Hirani and Joshi also question everyday malpractices in us in smart pithy scenes, like the one in which pk discovers Gandhi’s importance is now only defined by money, or where he is surprised that an insignificant and obvious fraud in a little city in a little country in a little planet in one corner of the universe has the audacity the think he can save or help God.

Things that we’ve all learnt in school (respect the Flag and the Father of the Nation, do not litter, you can’t bribe God to do your bidding, be a good person), and things we’ve all not only conveniently forgotten but also make excuses not to follow. What’s the point of not littering the roads when it all goes to the same pit, eh? Well, how about you trash things in your bedroom and living room instead of in bins at home? It all goes to the same pit anyway!

There’s nothing specific to talk about in terms of actors. It is Aamir Khan’s movie, but this isn't his best acting by any means. Anushka Sharma glows like a fresh flower despite the awkward lips. The anti-hyper feminine look is a winner. Everyone else is good at what they’ve been asked to do. There’s no answer to why the radio only plays old songs. Is it fixed to a particular channel that does that at all times?

The message in the movie is simple—stop following religious mores and practices at the cost of logic. God, or your belief is not the villain, distorted notions of those are.  Stripped to the bone, it really is that simple. It is bewildering to the alien, as it is to the few sane people left on Earth that this takes so much time to understand. On this theme Hirani adds commercial layers of songs (which don’t quite match up to his standards and are a tad too many in number), love triangles and melodrama.

And herein lies my problem. What Hirani has attempted with pk should be made an example of  ( wonder why it's not gone tax free yet) for every director and actor who think thick jokes, double-meaning laden quips and blowing up cars are the only way to make money. But where it missed the mark for me was in the inexplicable doses of un-Hirani like melodrama and preaching in the narrative.

In short, exactly what worked by their absence in  3 Idiots and the Munnabhai series killed the experience in pk.

Or maybe, like someone said, the audience for this one is people who think they can fix their problems with stones and amulets. (Don't laugh, we know educated graduates who still wear those. There. What are you hiding under your sleeve?)

At least, that’s who the movie is educating. They are the ones who buy Nazar Suraksha Kawajes and give Star TV its monies. So maybe, Hirani took the soap line of tears and dumbing down to drive home the point. I only wish he hadn’t.

                                                                     

Haider

                                                           

       With Haider, Vishal Bharadwaj completes his trio of Shakesperean tragedies, saving the toughest for the last.

Hamlet, as we all know by now, is the longest of the bard’s plays and takes about four and half hours to be acted out in its entirety. To my mind, it is also the more complicated of his works because the theme is not woven around right and wrong or good and evil, it is about indecisiveness. And revenge of course, but no one needs to spell that out.

In Haider, Bharadwaj manages to cut it down to about two hours and forty minutes.  It is evident from the way the movie is made that Bharadwaj wanted the trilogy to end on a high note and consciously worked towards that goal. The camera and editing work are razor sharp, the locations picturesque, characters well defined, the treatment poignant, yet grand. 

The good thing about Bharadwaj’s movies is that you don’t need to know Shakespeare to appreciate and enjoy them. The very good thing about his movies is that if you do know Shakespeare, your appreciation of what Bharadwaj is doing is magnified. Of course, it helps that basic human emotions—love, jealousy, hatred, sympathy etc remain constant through time, space and geographies and the 16^th century master has already given us the best plots built around them.

Bharadwaj internalizes Shakespeare in a way that is awe inspiring. In Haider he has gotten closer to the original text of the play than he was in Maqbool and Omkara,  in a way that can excite a student of literature. Yet, he is bold enough to depart from the original script in the very end. He has the student poet, for the student prince. You can’t have a Lord Chamberlain in modern day Kashmir, so his equivalent is the head of the police department.  There are the gravediggers and there are the courtier equivalents , there is the theme of Oedipus complex touched upon, there is the moment of his skull sighting and monologue, but what definitely takes the cake is Bharadwaj’s clever twist to the Ghost and the rendition of the famous “to be or not to be” soliloquy.  What good would a Hamlet be without that?

In Haider we have “Roohdar”, who is the rooh to father Hamlet’s jism. See?  That’s what makes a good adaptation. 

Setting Haider in Kashmir was a smart touch that adds uniqueness and an extra layer of complexity but Bharadwaj could have used any backdrop for this.

Then again, a tale of a series of misunderstandings and complex human relationships  that lead to death and devastation. Where have we seen that before? 

You’re right, almost everywhere in various avatars. Which is why Kashmir works. It’s that extra something to hold your audience in place, especially those who don’t find analyzing layers of  human relationships a worthwhile investment of time and money.

And yet, at times you might get restless. It is, after all, a long movie. Good as Haider is, it lacks the “chutzpah” of Omkara.  Shraddha Kapoor rankles a bit, maybe especially  because she is in such talented company. The girl gets sandwiched between power packed performances from the rest of the cast.  There’s one song that derails momentum, but then the Bismil number works like magic. As does the breathtaking choreography in it.

But just like the sum of the parts is not always equal to the whole, for all its beauty, goosebumps and breathtaking views, Haider does not stay with you beyond the theatre walls. And you are less likely to revisit Haider as fondly as you do Omi Bhaiyya or Langda Tyagi. 

                                                               

           

                                                                           

Lamhe

Yes, you read it right. That’s Lamhe, a 90s movie that I watched yet again the other day because I personally categorize it as “can watch whenever it is playing” and my American friend, having nothing better to do on a rainy Sunday, decided to give me company.

Her reaction to the movie was so entertaining (she’s Tamil but born and raised in the US, so unlike most people I know, she’d never watched this movie before) to me, I decided to review it here. The other reason is obviously that the three movies I’ve watched of late range from bad to uninspiring, so I didn’t bother writing about them. I gave “Kick” the miss, because I’ve promised myself I will not pay money to watch films that plainly mock the audience. Humpty Sharma ki Dulhania was the better of the lot and Alia Bhatt is definitely doing well, but it didn’t move me enough to write. I did like the “piyi huyi thi, memory loss nahi huwa tha” rejoinder to DDLJ though.

Anyway, back to Lamhe. It’s a Yash Chopra movie and after Silsila, easily the boldest they’ve ever been. Daag and Kabhi Kabhie (even Chandni) I assume would be risque for Bollywood back then, but Daag’s sort of Mayor of Casterbridge and the tension in the other two is tempered down  hugely to make them fit into the mainstream mold.

Anyway, I hear neither Silsila nor Lamhe did well when they hit the theatres, so I’ve a very strong feeling the grand old man, partly disillusioned with the audience, decided to stick with what the audience wanted—women in translucent whites and lovely songs stitched on easy-breezy story lines.

There are lovely songs in Lamhe, of course. Who can imagine any Chopra movie without those? But there’s surprisingly little candyfloss-ing. I remember when the movie hit the theatres there was some discussion about whether I would even understand, much less enjoy it. I just did the calculation. Lamhe was out in 1991. So I was six. I remember  the post movie discussion  my aunt and her friends had was quite steamy, all of them largely agreeing it was a bit “too much”.

I must have been too young to understand what exactly was “too much” in it, because I’d followed and liked the story quite well. But over the course of the years I’ve learnt to appreciate the risk Chopra was taking, making this movie in the early 90s. The movie breaks a number of Bollywood taboos while staying within the “commercial” borders. I always feel people do not need to become too radical to make any point—it can all be done in a more or less pleasant manner, and I felt the same again the other day when I was explaining Lamhe to my friend.

 For those who have no clue, it’s about a man who falls in love with a woman older to him. Taboo # 1.  The woman gets married to the man she is in love with, leaving our young man heartbroken. But he’s a man of the world, so instead of taking to the bottle or doing anything equally silly he goes about his business and in fact turns into a very disciplined man later. But the love of his life and her husband die soon after, leaving their infant an orphan.  The young man takes her in and provides for her; the baby  is raised by the “daai” who raised the man himself. Over time, the child, a spitting image of her mom, falls in love with her provider, now not so young. (Million taboos smashed!) Expected complications follow, not the least because of the age difference between them. Daughter realizes love of her life was originally in love with her mom but that does not matter to her (more smashing ).

Add to that some brilliant acting by Sridevi as mom and daughter, a very restrained Anil Kapoor  (all hair jokes notwithstanding, I like him),  melodious songs, good dialogues,  very sensitive direction and you know why many people like me would call Lamhe one of their favourite Hindi movies.

There’s an obvious influence of Daddy Long Legs in there, but it has been suitably Indianised and adapted. There is the age-and-place- in-life appropriate girlfriend who I’ve only lately started sympathizing with, I was too busy rooting for the young Sridevi earlier. 

There’s some incredibly no-fuss dialogues from the women and a whole lot of speaking their minds, without any nudity.  There’s some unnecessary comedy in the form of Anupam Kher, but the comic device is used in the classic sense where Kher acts as a mirror and a sounding board to the protagonist. Sridevi’s voice could be annoying at times but it’s nowhere as annoying as in Chandni and everything else about her is very good, so there’s no point nitpicking.

My friend started watching the movie only because it was playing right in front of her. What started as a polite show of interest quickly transformed into genuine curiosity. “She’s in love with him? But he’s her mom’s age!”

“Does he like her? He liked the mom!”

As I explained and sometimes defended the characters, I was thinking about how some things in this world will never change. It’s been more than a decade since Lamhe released and we’re still astonished at the complexities of love and life. Especially if they transgress age differences. I wonder how Lamhe would do if it hit the screen today. Would we still say “it was a bit too much”?

Maybe  fewer of us would. Like my friend, maybe more people would come around to accept the simple logic the younger Sridevi put forward: “kisi na kisi ko toh bada ya chota hona hi parta hain”.

Well, we’ll never know.  But we are also people who push things like “Humshakals” to be hits, so maybe we don’t even deserve to know. Maybe that was Chopra’s revenge—to give us Jab Tak Hain Jaan, in a manner of saying ”If it makes you go numb, don’t blame me. I tried, you rejected. Now suffer.”

Queen

                                                         

The first thing that you'll like about "Queen" is its honesty. The movie, and also the character, played so well by Kangana Ranaut.
    Gone is the Ranaut of the same old-same old high society, high maintenance, insecure, angst-ridden characters she monopolized. In Queen Kangana Ranaut is, like that Front Row interview, in her element and in her skin. And that carries the movie.
    With Queen director Vikas Bahl has broken a million taboos in pop Bollywood cinema, just like Rani (Ranaut) does when she goes on her adventure. It is a movie with no famous heroes (or even heroines), it is a movie where the leading lady does not fall in love with the handsome man who befriends her, it is a movie where the actress has to deal with modest means (even the planned honeymoon is in a budget hotel, ) and it is a movie that the  Johars and Chopras are still wary of putting money in.
    Queen, for those of you who still haven't seen it, is a coming of age movie. It has all the necessary cliches (the simple girl, the fickle boy, the cancelled wedding, the worldly-wise friend, the cathartic moment, the run of liberty) that makes for a coming of age movie, and yet it all falls in place and makes for an enjoyable experience that you relate to.
    Director Bahl uses a lot of boilerplate themes : the misfire while sending a picture, the sex shop, the confusion over a French menu, but where he wins is in his projection of those themes.
    My dance teacher once told me a good artist differentiates herself in how she presents her work and not simply by the content she chooses.
    As I watched Queen, I think I appreciated what she said meant all over again. Queen is the best example of  a movie making it sheerly on performance and direction despite a done to death and utterly predictable story line; right up there with  Chak De, in which SRK and team pulled off the same.
 So yes, there is the scene where a lizard scares the heroine, but instead of making it about "save the poor girl" Bahl uses it to forge a bond between roommates. A lizard in the bathroom makes most people jump, no matter you are French, Japanese, Indian or Spanish.
  The Dilli ki ladki is confused with a menu written in French, but it's not for gags or drama. She learns and the next time she's in the same situation in another new country, she makes it a point to ask the chef what she wants.
    The story in Queen is as simple as can be. Rani is the poster child of any matrimonial ad. Homely, pretty, educated  and agreeable, Rani is set to marry long time sweetheart Vijay, of course with the blessings of both sets of parents and extended family. But Vijay, who wooed Rani once upon a time, has had a taste of the modern world and thinks she is not good enough for him. Vijay calls off the wedding, Rani is flabbergasted. Shout out to both Bahl and Ranut for carrying this scene out so well. There's no loud screaming and shouting, there's not maramari between the families.
    Anyway, middle-class Rani has been saving since she was 17-- she always wanted to go to Paris for her honeymoon. After the initial shock and heartbreak, Rani somehow still manages to decide to go to Paris on her own and as she takes on her solo journey, finds a new life. And she realises she does not always need another person to be happy, that it is possible, even more enjoyable to do some things for herself and alone.
   Like a true artist, the director takes this hackneyed plot and does wonders with the presentation. So when the girl from Rajouri Garden sees her new found friend kiss her boyfriend in the mouth she smiles from the joy of having broken a million taboos, and you smile with her.  When she freaks out at having to share a room with male roommates but later settles in, when she drinks and enjoys it, when she kisses the "crush", when she insists on her food not being bland, you fall in love with her guileless charm, instead of snickering.
    Bahl's treatment of the characters are another strong point. The girl's parents are middle class-- they drive a Maruti, ask the kid brother to chaperone her and don't jump up for joy when she says she wants to travel the world alone. But then again, they love their daughter and have it in them to put her joys before their apprehensions. So the dad drives her to the airport when she leaves and lets her do her own thing when she decides to confront the fiance's family.
    The sultry Lisa Haydon does not appear outlandish-- they become friends but she does not accompany her all over her journey. Besides helping Rani and lending hotness to the movie, she has a kid to and a job to take care of.
    The boyfriend is a tad short changed, for we need to dissociate ourselves with him and focus on Rani. But even so, kudos for not turning him into a villain.
    In Vijay (Rajkumar Rao) you see the traditional Indian male struggling with his newfound modernity and almost feel bad for him. The man who stops Rani from working or dancing while wooing her dumps her later because he's changed and feels  she's stuck in her old world while he's moved forward. And then he comes looking for her (presumably after knowing she's having the time of her life without him)  and tries a more level tack, only to have it all unravel the moment she mentions she is sharing a room with three guys. "in logo ke saath rahogi raat mein? he splutters, and you realise that for all their Ray-bans and leather jackets, the Indian Male is still not free of the "raat mein?" syndrome.
    Queen is a well thought out movie -- the choice of Rani's degree (home science), the choice of the car the family drives (a maruti), the Urdu speaking Pakistani stripper, the Alice in Wonderland T shirt Rani wears, all speak of that.
    And when the movie is over, there's not forced naach gana to lift the mood. For you don't need any. The movie itself does that for you, and you come away with a smile.
    A thought: It is after all, a movie about finding your own joys and learning to be happy by yourself. So how about you go watch it alone, instead of depending on your boyfriend/girlfriend/ friend/partner/spouse to make time?