Did Sid Woke Up?. Review on Wake Up Sid

And so I am asking myself this question at the end of the movie? Did Sid really woke up? If yes, then what did he really woke up from - lethargy, a lack of career consciousness or that his love was in front of him all the time and he woke up to realize it?

Its by far a well made movie. Nice camera angles, good settings, artistic view of Bombay but I felt it did lack something. Firstly, the pace and the length of the movie. Its long considering that the director had not much of a script to help him.

If you have a solid backup of a story its easy to just paint it on the screen , the audience won't mind the length because there's always something in the story to keep them occupied but WUS (wake up sid) has a simple storyline unnecessarily dragged. If you consider the running time, its merely two and a half hours including the intermission so as far as the hindi films go, which has a standard running time of 3 hours or more, WUS is quiet short but again everything comes back to the plot. The plot is too simple even for two and a half hours of the movie.

Secondly, the songs. Its crammed with them. Chock a block full. It seemed like a musical film to me. The songs were the culprit of dragging the movie to its unnecessary length. Thirdly and the most importantly, the story itself. Comparisons of the movie with "Lakshya' can't be helped. We have a lethargic, uninterested protagonist who is more interested in partying than studying. A happy go lucky kid who's father's a big shot businessman. He has got the looks, the moves and the bucks. Girls swoon at him. Friends adore him and he just met an interesting girl (Konkana Sen).

Things started falling off when he flunked the exams and has had to repeat the year. Hell breaks loose, he gets into a nasty tiff with his father (Anupam Kher, who is fabulous in the role of dad) after Sid brusquely snubs his mother (Supriya Pathak, umm.. not excellently played the wanna-be-english-speaking mom but passable performance). He then moves in with Konkana and from there on its a big learning curve towards maturity for him. My reservations with the movie are that you either make the movie funny or make it sad. Moderate amounts of both are even fine but overdoing with the 'funnyness' or the 'sadness' kills the plot. The movie started off being funny (not extremely but funny enough to eke out a smile) but somewhere in the middle it became sad and then it became funny and then sad... so on and so forth. Coupled with funny and sad songs after every alternate five minutes, the movie is a mixed bag of emotions.

Ranbir and Konkana acted superbly. Ranbir is a bundle of cuteness and in every act of his cuteness, I could girls sitting behind me gushing. He has got the acting genes thoroughly imbibed in him. His comic timing is great and he is hell of a looker. He breezed through the role of sid easily. The only hitch was that his character wasn't given much of a depth.. but in whatever role he was given, his range of emotions were excellent.. it was evident that whenever he had a thing or two doubts about acting, he didn't have to go too far than his dad (Rishi Kapoor) for lessons.

Konkana is just too superb in the film. Frankly, I had never liked her acting in any of her past films (a couple of her movies which I have seen that is).. but here she even surpassed herself. Any other actor would have given the role a touch-and-go treatment but Konkana gave a deep dived performance. For me definitely one of the memorable performances.Anupam Kher is a maverick in the role of dad. His not-too-stern-but-strict dad performance was fabulous. The scene where he and Ranbir have an altercation was the defining moment. So in summation. Watch it for Ranbir and Konkana's towering performance but more importantly watch it for the old horse Anupam Kher, no matter how brief his role is in the movie.

3 star