Puzzle with Muzzle !!. Review on Paheli

When Amol Palekar, the one-time king of simplicity, decided to 'simply' do away with his understated style and take the 'commercial' centerstage by sandstorm, by making a personal magnum-opus cum folk-tale with SRK and Rani as leads, one would have expected a grand story if not a masterpiece. But the first thought that comes to your mind after you leave the cinema hall is, wasn't the canvas a bit too large for such a simple tale. And the worse part is, you tend to lose out on the intricate detailing (absolutely brilliant anyways) done to make the background exquisite, just because the story and the characters don't match up. And can somebody tell me, what was the 'Paheli'..?

Laachi (Rani Mukerjee) is married to Kishan Lal (SRK 1) but soon realizes that the son of a rich merchant Bhanwar Lal (Anupam Kher) is more interested in the calculus of trade rather than of emotions. But then, there is this ghost (SRK 2) who falls in love with Laachi at first sight (!?) and enters her house taking Kishan Lal's disguise. Poor Kishan, in the meanwhile, has been sent on a 5-year trade tour by his penny-lover father. ALthough the ghost confesses to Laachi his true identity, she choses to love and let be loved by this ghost. By the time Laachi becomes pregnant, the real Kishan Lal returns, partly due to his unfulfilled love for Laachi (and partly because the screenplay needed him after almost 2 hours of song-and-dance between Laachi and Ghost!). What happens next is the paheli (For the villagers only and not for Laachi since she already knows who's who.)

Being the adaptation of a Rajasthani folk-tale, the screenplay is gripping for the first half of the movie but after that, it muzzles down as song-after-happy-song wishes to dance on your nerves and it does. Climax is a big letdown with no say of Laachi in the final decision and no justification for the solution carved out by the omniscient ghost. Juhi Chawla and Suniel Shetty are wasted in miniscule roles and more so, since their story doesn't add up to the final conflict in the main theme. Big B is superb as usual but was he really needed...?

But then, Paheli has some huge positives too. One of them is definitely Rani Mukerjee who simply walks away with another excellent performance as simpleton Laachi who loves the sour 'ber' and wants to name her daughter 'Ujaali'. Ravi Chandran's camera makes each and every frame a picture postcard out of Rajasthan with colors and culture oozing out. MM Kreem's music and Gulzar Saab's lyrics are in sync with the folk-tale flavor and the work done on each character's dialect also shows. SRK as ghost is definitely much more better (and at ease with)than SRK as the village merchant and Amol Palekar has done well to control the 'energy bomb'. Special credit must go to Naseer and Ratna Pathak Shah for playing the roles of narrators to perfection.

But then, one would have expected a lot more from the meeting of a socially-conscious director and a universally popular actor and actress and Paheli, unfortunately, does leave a lot to be desired.