Should Have Been Better!. Review on Saathiya

After reading the thoughts of an Indian based film critic, I was really looking forward to seeing Saathiya. His comments on the output of Bollywood for 2002 were that there were two films not to be missed – Devdas and Saathiya!

Well I had seen Devdas some months before and had been truly bowled over by it – read my opinion of it to share my thoughts – and so was getting quite impatient to be able to see another film that I believed would be a blockbuster of similar proportions!

Initial visits to the web stated that it would open in the UK some time in February 2003. I duly requested ciao to include it in the Bollywood category, prior to seeing it and writing a subsequent opinion. In February, I found that a subtitled print was showing at Star City in Birmingham and a trip planned!

I became quite excited as the Saturday drew near and our trip came closer. Nandos followed by a really good Bollywood film! It was going to be a good night out and I was impatient!

So did it all go as planned ? Well, Nandos was good, as expected and Saathiya? It did not live up to expectations! Get the soundtrack of the album and enjoy it. It`s brilliant! Get the DVD or video and enjoy that as well, but don`t expect it to be fantastic for it has many faults and is ultimately a very flawed gem.

So what was wrong?

I found it to be a film of two halves, which started well but went down from thereon. Very episodic and lacklustre. The plotline was nothing exceptional and quite ordinary in places. A boy ,Vivek Oberoi – very dishy for the women in the audience!, meets a girl, Rani Mukherji – very nice for the men in the audience! They fall in love but her parents are not keen on him and want her to marry someone else. Seen this scenario before? Only about umpteen times!

What are they to do being so madly in love with each other? Elope!

Not wanting to spoil the film for any of you who will see it in the future, I shall only tell you that they set up house together, argue, fall out and experience a road accident. No prizes for guessing that this ultimately reunites them. As this is part of the usual formula I consider that I will not have spoilt matters too much for you.

As I stated previously, it had started well but appeared to have lost direction, so much so that the director must have needed to do some drastic action. This was in the form of the Bollywood idols, Shahrukh Khan appearing as the husband of Tabu, being roped in for the last drawn out minutes of the film.He just stumbles along, delivering his lines like an automaton - Kermit the Frog could have played the part with ease!Tabu had the role of the driver who caused the accident but for what? Star value? Why did the film and the two main stars in particular need to be propped up by these two cameo roles? It distracted from the impact of the last section as the two parts could have been played by any of hundreds of up and coming stars if the rest of the film had beeb up to scratch!

The acting was however generally very good, despite the rapidly sinking plot . The cinematography was excellent, the setting for the scenes quite natural and ordinary and a pleasant change for the film to depict fairly average, middle class people. There are great outdoor scenes involving sea and landscape shots. The soundtrack by A.R Rahman contains some truly catchy and distinct tracks and is a great accompaniment to the action.

It`s odd to note this this film is an almost direct copy of the 2000 film ''Alai Payuthe''. As this was made in Tamil and proved a big hit , it was decided fairly quickly to remake it in Hindi for a much bigger audience. The screenplay by Mani Ratnam was largely unchanged by director Shaad Ali and the whole film is an almost carbon copy, even down to bringing in two big names for the husband and wife involved in the accident. The original film suffered the same criticism that the Hindi version did. I find it very surprising that Shaad Ali should chose this film as his first directorial task and then leave it very much untouched and re-edited. It would have been an ideal opportunity to make his mark by correcting some of the faults in the first film but sadly he decided to play safe and keep Mani Ratnams screen play in its entirety!

I did enjoy the film on the whole but would advise you not to get too excited at the prospect.