Mar 13, 2007 05:07 PM
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Despite some obvious flaws, Reema Kagti’s debut venture about six couples is quite crisp and crackling and a giant leap forward from the tedious Salaam E Ishq, which essentially had a similar premise.
Six couples embark on their honeymoon in a bright purple Tata Starbus, and on the way we learn their little foibles, some idiosyncrasies and a few major surprises. The couples are a perpetually crying Gujarati girl(Dia Mirza), who walks out on her husband(Ranveer Sheory) as soon as she spies her former lover(Arjun Rampal); a young-at-heart elderly couple(Boman Irani and Shabana Azmi) who have entered into a hesitant second marriage well past their prime; a bourgouis Bengali couple(Raima Sen and Kay Kay Menon), who learn that it is not that bad to leave their societal shackles sometimes; a hearbroken girl(Sandhya Mridul) who jumps into a quick marriage with an NRI(Vikram Chhatwal) whom she met over the internet, only to discover that he is gay; a talkative Delhi Punju girl(Ameesha Patel) whose dreams are bigger than her realities, and her husband(Karran Kapoor) unravels an hitherto latent bisexual feelings; and, the two Parsis(Abhay Deol and Minnisha Lamba) sengued by their loneliness and Hailey’s comet!
Reema Kagti s biggest triumph lies in involving the audience in the journey. And despite some howlers(for example, Abhay and Minisha discover they are Superboy and Supergirl), she keeps the proceedings at a realistic plane and does not allow any overt gloss or glamour to creep in. It is the small interactions, the tiny dialogues, the everyday interactions which make the film hugely enjoyable. Another credit to her is in the cast selection, which is a perfect fit. Also, all the characters are brought together in one place making the film more cohesive than what Salaam E Ishq was! However, the sense of ‘un-structured-ness’ and non-symmetry in all the stories is trifle irritating.
From the couples Raima Sen and Kay Kay walk away with the best track as they dust off the soot of conventional Indian middle class living from their personalities, ending with Kay Kay dancing uninhibited to the film’s best song Sajnaji vaari vaari jaayunji! The scene where Sen does a paragliding ride and her saree comes off is particularly well-executed and presented; the saree becomes the metaphor for all that do’s and dont’s which she has wrapped herself in, and the breaking free from it is a moment of surprise and joy for her. Both Sen and Menon pitch in a sparkling performance.
The next best couple is the cuties Minishha and Abhay, with their doggy-kitty act in the bedroom, and an extremely fluid dance in the bar. The only dampener is the discovery of being SuperBoy/SuperGirl come on Reema, what was this silly and kiddish thing doing in a film which is otherwise so realistic?!
Boman Irani and Shabana come a close third, though I suspect the director meant them to be the best one. At least, she presents them as the ideal couple. And because of that they end up bland and boring. The track revolving Boman’s daughter not accepting her new mother needed more fleshing out. And the solution(she accepts because she’s ditched by her lover) is too half-baked and very cliched. I was looking forward to some interesting dialogue-baazi!
The climax is a big dampener, and when the end-titles start rolling one is left a bit unsatisfied - this could be taken both as a negative(after all, there is no proper build up towards it or any reason for ending it just there) and a positive(one is enjoying the trip, and could have seen a few reels more!). I personally feel it is the former. In any case, there is no super-story to the six stories, but that’s ok I guess, it is the new mantra of film making.
The film has a small-budget feel to it. And even though they are in Goa it doesn’t do much to further the state s tourism cause. The dialogues(Anurag Kashyap) are good.
Musically, Vishal-Shekhar are average and beyond Sajnaji vaari vaari and Pyaar ki ek kahaani suno, there isn’t anything worthwhile. In fact, I preferred the old songs used to introduce some of the characters! A word of praise for the choreography of Sajnaji - it is loose, unstructured and open, much like a normal person would dance!
In the end I’d say I agree with Nikhat Kazmi’s review in Times of India, Reema Kagti shows promise, but needs to polish her storytelling technique
