Fashion Review. Review on Fashion

For those who do not like to read lengthy and elaborate reviews, I will finish off the review in short:

Fashion can briefly be described as a two and a half (and then some) hour long commercial for safe sex and

condoms, with only less than thirty seconds of foreplay, and Malaika Arora is nowhere around, though her husband is.

That’s it, we may all go home now, apart from the individuals who want long, elaborate and detailed reviews.

So, here we have a girl from Chandigarh wanting to become ‘a superstar’ (verbatim) who has come to Bombay. A girl who has that one content in the glamor industry who helps her out. Well, we all

have one, don’t we?

Anyway, the movie speaks about

Priyanka Chopra’s characters life and times as a struggler, a ‘showstopper’ and

then a failure and finally, the comeback kid.

Sounds good on paper, but the plot completely fails on screen. Why?

There are several, several reasons, here are some:

Priyanka Chopra: Years down the

line, people will pass snide remarks as to why actually Priyanka Chopra was

cast as an actress in such a strong role. The Aitraaz girl cannot carry such a

meaty role on her slender shoulders, and the problem is, her best is simply not

enough. Of course, there are several actresses that come to mind when one

thinks who could have been cast as the lead protagonist. I am not a great fan

of Aishwarya Rai, but she has the necessary oomph factor and can look down and

out when she needs to (watch Provoked).

The fundamental, basic, flaw: The

script. I mean, this is the twenty first century. And India has grown. Twenty

years ago, it’d be allright for Priyanka Chopra’s character to feel miffed at

Arbaaz Khan’s character telling her to abort the child as casually as telling

her to refill her drink (as I write this, an ad for a contraceptive pill is

going on the channel 9x, surely a fashion model has brains and money enough to

buy it).

But, I think eight out of ten

individuals, men and women, will agree with me that it would be foolish on

Sarin’s (Arbaaz Khan) part to actually tell Meghna (Priyanka) that ‘baby, screw

this multi million dollar contract with Vogue, forget that movie in the making,

or even that weeklong fashion bonanza in Bali, let’s divorce my trophy wife and

we can have the baby!’.   I may sound greedy and heartless and such, but

I am just practical. How many women we know today let children come in the way

of their professional advancement?

And of course, the dialogue of

the century lies with Kangana Ranaut’s character ‘I don’t understand’, when

Kitu Gidwani’s character sacks her as the front face of the modelling agency. I

mean, sweetheart, you have a coke trail longer than a conman’s chargesheet, you

being sober is in the news instead of you being drunk, and you ‘don’t

understand why’. Of course, one has to say that Kangana Ranaut and Madhur

Bhandarkar have got through the point that given all the weaknesses and idiosrychanises

that her character has, she sets the stage on fire with her performance.

Watch

the scene where she has a drag of wine and walks the ramp as if she owns it

(would it be too far fetched if I compare her acting with the ‘Joker’, because

while I was watching the movie, there were ‘oh no, what is she gonna do now’

sighs whenever she came on screen, like the one where she meets Meghna in the

washroom). This and this alone can keep a person in the media ticking for a

good five to ten years.

And lastly, the concepts in

Fashion fail to touch the everyday person. I mean, when people saw Page 3,

every part of them cried out in revolt against the happenings on screen and

wanted to do something about it. But what’s in this movie, a girl from a small

town comes into the big, bad world of fashion, wins because someone else loses,

acts in a lingerie ad to make money, promptly gets herself knocked up by a

married  man, goes on a destructive daze

and then tries to make amends. So, big deal.  Of course, she fails in one part and wins in

another. Basically, this girl is a sexy space shuttle destined for a journey to

success but the speed is ‘self destruct’.

Now, because I am a kind hearted

guy, I will give some scenarios that would fit better than the damp squibs that

the movie turned out to be:

Mrs. Sarin knows everything about

the affair between Meghna and Mr. Sarin, and actually asks for a threesome, and

that is the reason that she leaves them. Now, that would be interesting.

Also, the scene where Meghna

thanks the bald guy for his help is downplayed. Let’s see the scene like this,

Baldie comes and staggers off about how she has to do the rampwalk, and Meghna

just looks at him, and cries and finally goes towards him to hug him and say

thank you. Now that would be good, isn’t it?

But yes, one aspect that Madhur Bhandarkar succeeds in showing us is that inspite of all the heartbreak and angst behind the ramp, when the lights go off, all of are spellbound by the glitzy world of fashion.