What happens when you run into your old-flame after many years? By many years, I don’t mean 22 years – as in the case of Veer Zaara where the couple have aged and spent their youth in the agony of separation from their saccha pyaar. But more like 9-10 years when both are still reasonably attractive, and have moved on with their lives (a tad bit more realistic shall we say). -
Do sparks still fly? If so, how long does it last? These are the questions that form the premise of debutant director Hans Canosan’s film “Conversations with other women”. Why I picked up this DVD? Sometimes new directors come up with new perspectives, and the film may be refreshing to watch. Of course in some cases this could backfire and you end up with a trashy product. Regardless, its good to encourage new talent, I feel, and I went ahead and picked this film up.
As the credits began rolling – the characters and the credits were shown in split screen- nothing new there. But then I realized that the director seemed to have experimented with a new method of story-telling, as the entire film began to unfold in split screen.
Story: The movie starts off with a bored looking young lady (Helena Bonham Carter) sitting alone at one of the guest tables at a wedding reception. She spots a pack of cigarettes on another table, runs toward it like P.T. Usha, picks it up and storms out of the room like her life depended on it. So our heroine (a cardiologists’s wife) who has flown in all the way from London to attend the wedding of an old friend in New York turns out to be a cigarette-chorni (CC).
As she heaves a sigh of relief when she finally blows off her first puff, a tall, dark and handsome (TDH) blonde guy (Aaron Eckart) walks up to her with a glass of champagne…Perfect timing! But wait, it turns out that our cigarette-chorni doesn’t drink – She is a one-vice at a time kind of gal and politely refuses the drink. But the guy sticks around anyways, making small talk.
How many times have we seen pile-ons like this? – People can I please have a show of hands here? And thus began the choti-choti batein (small conversations) between the guy and the gal. Some of the dialogues were "so innovative" and went like this: TDH: “Have we met? I remember, it was years ago that I had seen you for the first time and you were wearing a blue dress, reading a book". Cigarette Chorni (CC): “Achhaa…I don’t remember – But, if you say so, what was the name of the book I was reading”?
TDH: “I don’t remember the name of the book, but I remember your blue dress with short sleeves”, “I had kissed you then and there”. CC: I really don't recall, when was this? “Are you sure this is not fiction”? By this time, the audience is wondering as to which of the two have the worse memory??
Also, Point to be noted – Some guys pay more attention to a woman’s dress (color, sleeves, shape etc) and little attention to the kinds of books she reads, in other words intellectual ability. The director then takes you through many such “interesting” conversations, where TDH keeps shooting pick up lines at her. He finds out that she is married, but couldn’t careless.
He, himself has a girlfriend who is 15 years younger than him, but doesn’t care (his excuse - its not really that serious, she has a great body that’s all). For now, he is mesmerized by cigarette-chorni and at the end of the evening, does end up slow dancing with her at the wedding (Kudos!! To him!! Mission accomplished). But wait, raat abhi baaki hai, baat abhi baaki hai.
So…what happens next?? Spoilers Ahead: Well, no points for guessing – he ends up spending the night with her, in her hotel room. Suddenly, chorni feels guilty, gets out of bed, rushes to the bathroom with her cell phone and calls her doc hubby sitting on the toilet seat, while smoking a ciggie. Why did she call her hubby from the toilet seat?
Dunno – may be it was too e-motional for her, will our very own MS doc please throw some light? In the mean time TDH gets restless and eavesdrops on the conversation. He sticks his ears to the bathroom door, as much as he can without physically ‘sticking’ his kaan to the dwaar, and turning into a ‘kaandwaar’. Through the various split-screen sequences, between past (flashbacks), present and even future (yep! The imagination/dream sequences) the audience is informed that TDH is Chorni’s ex-husband, who is still “betaab” for her and has missed her all along.
She had left him, when he was still in law school (too busy to devote time for her). He pleads with her to leave the London doc as he is himself a successful lawyer now and she can even smoke in front of him (she can’t smoke in front of doc). So, whom does Chorni end up choosing? The doc or the lawyer? That remains for you to see, (i.e if you are still interested).
My take: I believe it is extremely difficult to keep the audience engrossed in a movie that rests entirely on two characters alone without any significant rhyme or reason and in the absence of gripping script or superlative acting. Big name actors may still bring in the initial for such a movie, but in the absence of that, not much can be expected from a film like this.
There are two backdrops in the film: (a) A wedding hall; (b) hotel room, so not much to speak in terms of cinematography. The performances were strictly average, and a poor script did not help either. Direction was lackluster. This movie only deserves a watch, from a technician/editor’s pov, if that. Split-screen is usually used to show different time frames/ locations/characters at the same time, but here the technique was used through the entire course of the film.
For example, when showing conversations between two characters, instead of showing different shots of each character’s facial expressions/dialogues or a single shot, where the camera movement switches between the two characters, split screen was used, so, the audience could see the facial expressions and dialogues being delivered by both the actors at the same time.
Of course, split-screen was occasionally used for some of the flash back sequences as well. Over all, I would say if you are looking to watch a movie with good script and entertainment, you can skip it. But, for those interested in seeing an innovative story telling method in a movie, may be you can try enduring this film at your own risk.
