Filmi Geek

Kannathil muthamittal (2002)

கன்னத்தில் முத்தமிட்டால்

As highly regarded as Mani Ratnam is, I have often been told that his Tamil movies are better than his Hindi ones. I can believe it. I have been rather hard on those of his Hindi movies that I have seen. Perhaps because they are so often ravingly praised, I have unfair expectations. They have struck me as uneven in tone, unsure what kind of movies they wanted to be, what message they wanted to send.

Kannathil muthamittal ("a peck on the cheek"), in contrast, is nearly flawless. It is a simple story, simply told, unburdened by melodramatic embellishments or unrealistic characters. These clean lines, these relatable characterizations, allow the movie to explore some large, dense themes without tying itself in intractable knots. Dil se obscures its examination of terrorism with Shah Rukh Khan's hammy and under-motivated stalker romance. Yuva is severely compromised by its absurd superman character who takes bullets and falls off bridges without ever wavering in courage or commitment. But Kannathil muthamittal ranges from an adopted child's search for her identity to the vicious horrors of Sri Lanka's internecine conflicts without ever losing its emotional mooring.

Shyam Benegal's movies often probe big, society-shaking themes and events through close studies of the experiences of a small number of people. One does not always need an expansive cast and an epic storyline to examine rangy ideas. Mani Ratnam succeeds with Kannathil muthamittal because it, too, focuses a tight lens on a small family. Thiruchelvan (Madhavan) and Indira (Simran) adopt a baby girl born in a Tamil Nadu refugee camp to M.D. Shyama (Nandita Das), who has fled the fighting in Sri Lanka between Tamil Tiger fighters and the Sri Lankan army.  On her ninth birthday, the girl, Amudha (P.S. Keerthana) learns of her adoptive origins, and demands to meet her mother.  Her parents, burdened by guilt and concern for their headstrong little girl, take her to Sri Lanka in search of Shyama.

It is arguably foolish of this family to walk straight into a war zone as they do, all for the demands of an imperious child. The film seems not to judge them for this bad decision, however.  We see Indira's anguish at Amudha's suffering, her guilt at perpetrating the implied deception of adoption, and her helplessness in the face of Amudha's drive; the little girl runs away from home twice, set on finding her own way to Sri Lanka, so it is hard to blame her parents for taking her there.  And the family seems genuinely unprepared for what they find there, as if the remoteness of the conflict from their comfortable air-conditioned Madras home left them with little awareness of it, no framework in which to form expectations.  They are naive in their bold forays, even while accompanied by a local guide (Prakash Raj).  They find themselves buffeted in the confusion of a flood of refugees, shelled by army artillery even as they flee their village.  They find themselves rubbing elbows with suicide bombers, and caught in the crossfire of rifle and grenade battles.  They even find themselves in the jungle, surrounded by suspicious fighters who point guns to their heads and demand they prove their loyalties.  In the Sri Lanka the family visits, violence is a way of life.

It is perhaps the film's main message that being aware of this conflict, telling its stories, is of crucial importance to the individual lives that are rent by it.  Thiruchelvan is himself a storyteller, a writer; if he had not been hearing and telling the stories of refugees in the camp where Shyama gave birth, he and Indira and Amudha would never have come together to form a family.  And so Kannathil muthamittal tells their story, Amudha's and Shyama's and Thiruchelvan's and Indira's.  It tells those stories, not with a sweeping focus that outlines the grand history of Tamil/Sinhalese conflicts, but with an intimate focus on a child's perspective.  In a child's eye, the violence is not only senseless, but irrelevant.  All that matters is the connections of love, the connections that bind families together. 

Much of Kannathil muthamittal's expression of the love in Amudha's family is told impressionistically during the movie's gorgeous A.R. Rahman songs.  In these stunning picturizations, Amudha dances and cuddles and plays with each of her parents (Indira in the title song, and Thiruchelvan in "Nenjil Jil Jil") across diverse, colorful dreamscapes like those of the songs of Dil se.  These picturizations are paintings in motion, visual poetry singing the family's love.   Another song, "Vidai Kodu," presents the harsh, dirty anguish of a vast train of refugees against the stark beauty of thunderclouds and wilderness.  Red clay soil and the army-green of tank convoys splash the backdrop of this canvas on which the brightly-colored clothes of the refugees are anything but cheerful.

This thematic juxtaposition between the vastness of the civil war and the depth of the family's love is what makes Kannathil muthamittal its own effective and moving story.  It is how the movie can say so much, without trying to do too much. Mani Ratnam's Bombay takes a similar approach, and is equally effective.  It is not for nothing that these are by far the two best I've seen of his movies.  It may also be not for nothing that they are both written and shot in Tamil.

Gaja Gamini (2000)

गज गामिनी

Gaja Gamini, M.F. Husain's first excursion into filmmaking, is absurd in almost every aspect, and not in the cool intellectual sense.  It is just ridiculous.  It's a series of laughably poor attempts at profundity, which are often embarrassing to watch.  It is safe to say that were it not for the reverence attached to Husain himself, the project would never have attracted either financial backing or the high-profile stars who dupe innocents like me into enduring it.   It is, as a Twitter acquaintance so concisely summarized it, senseless.

Gaja Gamini is widely described as Husain's tribute to his "muse," Madhuri Dixit.  If this description gives you pause - as it does me - it's with good reason.  Gaja Gamini is every bit as objectifying and regressive as it sounds when it comes to paying tribute to a woman, or to women, or to Women.  It is brimming over with revoltingly pompous references to the Ageless Mystery That Is Woman and Woman's Mystical Power and other such claptrap that one associates with the sort of self-congratulatory man who says things like "I'm not a misogynist; I love women." 

The titular Gaja Gamini (Madhuri Dixit), is a mysterious, flitting creature whom all men are in thrall of though none fully glimpses.  She incarnates through several ages as a series of women, most of whom have this in common:  Each waits alone on her conceptual pedestal for an arrant man to come to her and be inspired by her beauty to create their own masterworks.  One incarnation, Shakuntala, is the muse of the epic poet Kalidas (Mohan Agashe, a co-producer of the film credited here as Dr Mohan Agashe as if his academic credentials bolster the thin tissue of Husain's wanky fantasy).  Shakuntala's decidedly unworthy mate is a doltish, Jodhpur-wearing, banduk-toting rajkumar.   In another incarnation, Gaja Gamini is Mona Lisa, who is, of course, the inspiration of Leonardo Da Vinci, embodied here by Naseeruddin Shah - you read that right - in a stupid costume coughing up even stupider lines while waving his compensatory paintbrush in the air. 

What?

The supposedly modern incarnation of Gaja Gamini, Monica (note the western name), enjoys a light romantic dance with Shah Rukh Khan before the important manly work of covering a war (he is a photojournalist) wrenches him from her arms, leaving her teary and anxious.  This is M.F. Husain's great vision of the timeless power of woman - the endless ability to sit around on our asses crying while our men  create art, science, culture, and shape the world.

In some kind of token nod to feminist themes, one incarnation of Gaja Gamini, Sangeeta, inspires a group of village women including Shabana Azmi, Farida Jalal, and  Shilpa Shirodkar, to take up their lanterns and march against - well, against what it is not clear, but their march is stern and angry and they wield their lanterns fiercely.  But even this powerful Sangeeta is debilitated; she is sometimes blind, sometimes mute, and each of the other women transforms into her, ensuring that none of them is whole either.  And even Sangeeta waits for the rescuing hand of her ageless lover Jayant.  Feh.

Why, Shabana ji?

There is plenty more; the vapidity of Husain's vision is nearly boundless, and Gaja Gamini indulges it to the fullest in over two hours of excruciatingly scripted, stiffly acted nonsense. You might think that a movie conceived and executed by an artist of Husain's stature would at least have visual appeal, but not so Gaja Gamini.  The sets are, I suppose, meant to be theatrical, minimalist, and evocative, but for the most part they come across as amateurish and low budget.  The film's early sequences take place on an abstracted, primary yellow Banaras ghat that looks more like the hastily hammered and painted set of a high school play than that of a high-concept art film.   The Monica and Shah Rukh sequence occurs on a set bisected by a large brick wall (one side represents the past and tradition, the other the present and modernity, get it?) - and when Shah Rukh Khan's choregraphy requires him to lean against it, it shudders and sways, belying the papier-mâché beneath its brick facade.  Only the blue-and-white Dal Mandi set on which the women's march occurs is anything close to evocative.  One just expects more from such a revered visual artist as Husain.

I have been to Banaras, and you, sir, are no Banaras.

Prancing about on these poor, pliant theatrical sets, the array of actors comport themselves woodenly and self-consciously; the experienced stars gracing this cast are as forced and ridiculous as Husain's unknowns.  There is nothing wrong with highly stylized direction when the style serves a purpose, but here it only lends pomposity, a sense that someone (well, Husain) believes these characters have such profound philosophical insights to deliver that they must speak them in the patronizing tones of a small child's religious teacher.  It compounds embarrassment upon painful embarrassment, in an utter disaster of a movie that is more pointless than profound.

Ooga booga!

If Gaja Gamini has a redeeming feature, it is Madhuri herself.  How many movies can one say this of?  If there is any actor who can make the unwatchable bearable for a moment with a dazzling smile or a crisply executed mudra, it is Madhuri Dixit.  Thankfully, here she is as radiant as ever.  M.F. Husain's tribute to her may be objectifying bakhwas with a camera that dwells embarrassingly languidly on the exaggerated sway of Gaja Gamini's ass, but you can't say Madhuri is not a worthy choice of muse.  She is at her best, of course, in the movie's songs, which are by far its highlights.  Bhupen Hazarika's music is quite lovely throughout, and the songs are smartly (if weirdly) choreographed. Indeed, I had seen two of the songs years ago, "Meri payal bole" and "Do sadiyan ke sangam," and rather wish I had left it at that.

 

Filling some gaps: Mini-reviews of Banaras, Slumdog Millionaire, Jaanwar aur insaan

With very few exceptions, this site contains a post about every Indian movie or India-related movie I have seen in the last eight years, even if just a paragraph or two.  Every once in a while, though, a movie slips through the cracks, and I neglect to write about it.  This offends my sense of order and completeness. 

And yet, for a variety of reasons, the chances are slim I will ever write a full review of some of these films.   So, here are brief notes that will fill in three gaps that have dogged me for months or years.

 

Banaras (2006)

Haay bhagwaan, this movie is awful.  It is the kind of awful I would have relished shredding in a full review, and I very much wish I had done so at the time I watched it.  But for whatever reason I did not get around to that, and I just can't bring myself to view it again as I would need to do to treat it properly.  Now, I remember little save the visceral shuddering sensation it induced, and the sense of embarrassment for the actors one feels when watching a truly horrendous work of cinema. 

Banaras, as I recall, is a dreadful, ham-fisted attempt to weave profound religious philosophy into the filmi archetypes of an inter-caste love story.  I can't say for sure that this idea is doomed from the outset; perhaps it has the potential to be a fine idea, and the film's near-unwatchability is due to irrecoverable flaws in execution.  Most of the film's cast is competent; Urmila Matondkar stars as a philosophical Brahmin woman, Raj Babbar and Dimple Kapadia play her parents, and Naseeruddin Shah makes an appearance as the enlightened mentor of the low-caste young man (Ashmit Patel) that Urmila's character falls in love with.  This Ashmit Patel is thoroughly outclassed in this company, and his stiff, breathy, awful performance contributes in no small measure to the cringeworthiness of this terrible movie. 

Having now been to the titular city in the years since I endured this film, I might at least enjoy its mystical setting.  There is something remarkable about being on the Ganga in Banaras; one can feel the holiness of the place in the collective sincerity of the pilgrims that flock there to worship.  But I would not risk desecrating those memories by superimposing this embarrassingly clumsy film on them.  It's just not worth it.

 

Slumdog Millionaire (2008)

I saw this movie when it came out, but I didn't write about it right away, and after a week or two it seemed so much ink had been spilled about it that I had nothing to add to the greater discourse.  Now, more than four years later, I feel much the same.  It is a good film, tightly scripted, well-acted, manipulative in all the right ways, entertaining and moving (*).  But as a western movie by a western director, it raises issues that make me uncomfortable, issues I am not sure how to address. 

I don't think there is anything wrong, a priori, with people telling stories set inside cultures other than their own.  I do not think such stories are necessarily exploitative or colonial or presumptuous, although many are all of these things.  I do not even know whether Slumdog Millionaire errs in these respects, or whether its director Danny Boyle has treaded carefully enough to paint a legitimate picture.  But in a sense, it doesn't matter.  Western audiences with little knowledge of India will draw the conclusions they draw, regardless of how much care has gone into crafting the story. 

The portrayal of Bombay life  in Slumdog Millionaire may be faithful in some respects, but it is a faithful representation of only one of Bombay's multiplicity of truths, much less the truths of all of India.  Of course, no movie can explore all realities at once.  But there is an unfortunate tendency among western audiences without nuanced knowledge of India's many cultures to extrapolate from what they see in a movie like Slumdog Millionaire.  It is because of movies like Slumdog Millionaire that my mother accused me of neglecting the "real India" when I chose to take a walk on my own through Kala Ghoda and Fort rather than accompany her on a tour of Dharavi. 

After her visit to Dharavi, I showed my mother Dhobi Ghat (**), and I hope it helped her understand that the "real India" is in fact many real Indias, a layered and intertwined complex that cannot be experienced in an afternoon, whether one chooses to spend that afternoon in a poor or an affluent part of town.  But none of this means  categorically that movies about India shouldn't be made by western filmmakers and marketed widely in the west.  It has to be better for westerners to learn something about India, even if it is an oversimplified, undernuanced something, than to learn nothing at all.  Me, I would rather watch Indian movies made for Indians than western attempts at capturing Indian authenticities.  What I learn from, I suppose, is eavesdropping on the stories Indians tell each other.   But if even a small fraction of the westerners who filled theaters watching Slumdog Millionaire was inspired to go learn more, then the movie has already done more than a mainstream entertainer has any responsibility to do.

(*) I've been half-watching it while writing this, and I have to note that I am not finding it as well-acted or as moving the second time through.

(**) Once before our trip I had tried to show her Dharavi but she didn't get into it.

 

Jaanwar aur insaan (1972)

Shashi Kapoor made a lot of movies.  His work ethic is legendary, but he could not have been terribly discriminating in his choice of scripts.  The truly worst movies he ever made are probably - blessedly - forgotten, tucked away in dusty cans in some moldy storage locker in Bombay, never to be transferred to digital medium.  But others of his clunkers do remain.  And some Shashi Kapoor fans are devoted enough to be as undiscriminating in our choice of films to watch as he was in his choice of films to act in. 

When I stumbled across Jaanwar aur insaan on YouTube, I knew I had to bring it to Beth's attention.  In addition to Shashi Kapoor, it offered Rakhee, another favorite of hers.  I briefly scanned the file for subtitles.  It didn't have them, but I could tell it wouldn't matter; the scenes I watched had little dialogue, just Shashi Kapoor beating up bad guys and Shashi Kapoor stalking a tiger. This was a movie we simply had to see.

When I watched the movie in the company of both Beth and Amrita, we were not fully prepared for how dreadful it would actually be.  It starts out promisingly, with terrific overture music over the opening credits and legitimately impressive wildlife photography.  It treats you to some of the more hilarious fight choreography that Hindi films offer so richly, and Meena (Rakhee) in a memorabe sun-yellow pantsuit.  Make no mistake - the movie is stupid.  The plot, such as it is, consists mostly of Shekhar (Shashi) stalking a tiger which he remains unable to catch for much of his adult life.  There is also the obligatory "yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti" sort of story element, whereby tension is caused by Meena's father having murdered Rakhee's father. But for a while the stupidness is fun, at least when enjoyed with a like-minded friend or two.

Jaanwar aur insaan takes a decided turn for the WTF when Shekhar and Meena's child enters the picture.  Shekhar contends for father of the year in his approach to teaching his spoiled, miscreant child a lesson:  He takes the boy to the wilderness, ties him to a tree, and leaves him there to be sniffed and nuzzled by wild animals.  This is how Shekhar finally defeats the tiger that has troubled him for years: using his own son as bait.  The loyal Shashi Kapoor fan who suffers through this movie may wish that it was she tied to that tree instead. 

Maqbool (2003)

मक़बूल

In recent weeks I have gushed beyond reason about Vishal Bhardwaj's recent movies Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola and 7 khoon maaf.  And in light of that gushing, I became more conscious that I hadn't yet seen his widely acclaimed Shakespeare adaptations, including Maqbool, based upon Macbeth.  So many people I respect hold this movie in very high regard, and I went in with high expectations.  That was not careful thinking on my part.  While I appreciate why the movie is effusively praised, it is just not a story I needed to hear told.  There is next to nothing I like about Maqbool.

I almost pulled the plug during Maqbool's unbearable first half hour, which is a scene after scene litany of anonymous angry men sneering and threatening and pointing guns at one another.  Eventually, their relationships begin to fall into place (though the swaggering and gun-pointing doesn't substantially abate).  Pandit and Purojit (Om Puri and Naseeruddin Shah) are corrupt police inspectors. They moonlight as heavies in the employ of Jahangir Khan, also known as Abbaji (Pankaj Kapur), who is a widely respected - and feared - underworld boss.  Abbaji's right-hand man, Miyan Maqbool (Irrfan Khan), is a brooding and angry fellow.  He is nursing a secret relationship with Abbaji's mistress, Nimmi (Tabu), who goads him into betraying Abbaji and taking over the gang himself.  Both Abbaji and Nimmi are beset by fits of guilt as a result of this betrayal.

The trouble with this story, for me, begins with the underworld setting.  I just don't care about underworld stories.  Much of this movie is one dick-fight after another - Pandit and Purojit versus whatever rival they are sent to assassinate; Pandit and Purojit versus Maqbool; Abbaji versus corrupt politicians or other smugglers he does business with; Maqbool versus Abbaji's other deputy, Kaka (Piyush Mishra), or versus Kaka's son Guddu (Ajay Gehi), who is Maqbool's principal rival as heir to Abbaji's reign.  Many times through the film I just wished they could break out the rulers and be done with it.  The incessant chest-beating is not just tedious; it underscores how fundamentally uninteresting these characters are.  When relationships are determined by who displays the swaggiest machismo, I can muster little interest in the outcome.

Miyan Maqbool, who is of course the avatar of Macbeth himself, is supposed to be more nuanced.  Macbeth's internal conflict forms the meat of Shakespeare's play.  Likewise, Maqbool is meant to be an exploration of Miyan Maqbool's moral struggle, as his thirst for power outweighs his sense of filial loyalty to Abbaji.  The problem is that Maqbool is a reprehensible person.  He's senselessly rageful and cruel from the outset of the film.   He makes his living as a thug and an assassin for a gang of weapons smugglers that includes corrupt policemen and politicians.   And so if his reprehensible actions have consequences that pain him, so what?  I do not feel sorry for him and I do not find his angst or his suffering terribly compelling. 

If Vishal Bhardwaj had chosen to map the grand conflict of Macbeth onto more accessible, everyman characters - instead of a bunch of unredeemable underworld criminals - that could have been an utterly brilliant movie.  After all, even ordinarily good people do make colossally bad choices from time to time.  The fallout of an awful, evil action committed by a regular, relatable person could have been intensely compelling cinema.  Instead, Maqbool offers yet another dreary story about angry men who don't know any way to respond to strong emotions except by pointing guns at people's heads.  I am aware that such men exist in the world, but I am utterly uninterested in seeing their stories told again and again and again in the movies.  I just don't care. 

The only redeeming feature of Maqbool is Nimmi, and Tabu's smoldering, sinuous performance of her.  Nimmi's story has more nuance than that of the men.  She must achieve her manipulation and intimidation without the benefit of machismo, thugs, and weaponry; subtler methods are required.   Nimmi is aware that her days with Abbaji are numbered after a young starlet catches Abbaji's eye; Nimmi points out that she'll have nowhere to go if Abbaji throws her out.  Thus, she manipulates Maqbool - not because she truly loves him or thinks he deserves to inherit the mantle of the gang, but because it's the only way she can protect her comfortable position in the gang's luxurious haveli. 

But while Nimmi's arc makes the middle of the movie more tolerable than its execrable first half hour, she is not enough to overcome my fundamental frustration with the premise.  Underworld gangsters can go ahead and kill each other and betray each other and feel guilty about it or not, as much as they like.  But I don't want to hear about it, and I don't watch to watch movies that glorify it.  There are just so many other stories I would rather be told.

I Can't Think Straight (2008)

I have to admit up front that the desi content of this movie is so minimal that it doesn't strictly belong on Filmi Geek.  But what the heck, I'll write about it anyhow.  I crave stories about love between women, and I crave stories in which women in patriarchal cultures (including my own culture, I must point out) find the value of asserting autonomous control over their own sexuality.  Shamim Sarif's I Can't Think Straight at least attempts to offer both.  And with my interest in the rich, diverse cultures of both the Middle East and India, this romance between a Jordanian aristocrat (Lisa Ray) and a London daughter of middle-class Indian immigrants (Sheetal Sheth) should have hit all my sweet spots.  Instead, it's a warty, often cringe-worthy production.  But I can't bring myself to shred it mercilessly.  I Can't Think Straight is a movie whose ham-fisted unsubtlety is punctuated by occasional moments of smart and sexy.  It's a movie, in short, that is a lot like me. 

To its credit, I Can't Think Straight has some sweetness to it and strikes a few good targets.   The relationship between Tala (Ray) and Leyla (Sheth) starts off contrived but becomes more believable as the film progresses.  Early on Tala's brash confidence overwhelms the tentative Leyla.  But it becomes clear that Tala's numerous broken engagements are not the result of strong-headed wilfulness - to the contrary, they are the detritus of her confusion, uncertain attempts to be what her overbearing mother wants her to be.  In the meantime, Leyla's arc takes the opposite trajectory - as she comes into her own as a writer and as a lesbian, her uncertainty transforms into absolute strength and confidence.  "You have to admire her guts," says a mutual friend of the two women (Rez Kempton), and he's quite right.

And so the two women don't just feel attraction to one another, but they do deeply change one other.  Tala challenges Leyla's  already shaky adherence to her Muslim faith.  In return, Leyla inspires Tala to stand up to the culture that Tala feels limits her choices so severely.  When Tala insists that she cannot pursue her love for Leyla because Jordanian high society is closed-minded and conservative, Leyla points out that "it will stay that way, as long as no one is willing to challenge it." 

These are the movie's strengths.  Unfortunately this simply moving story is embedded in a distracting matrix of cliché, stereotype, caricature, and unsubtlely that requires an entire tray of freshly-baked eyerolls to get through.  Tala's mother Reema (Antonia Frering) is a cartoon witch of a Middle-Eastern socialite, making her daughters miserable with constant harping on their weight and fashion choices, and barking orders at staff who despise her.  ("Where is my husband?  And where is my coffee?")  Leyla's mother (Siddiqua Akhtar) is even worse, hitting every stereotype of the provincial, fresh-off-the-boat NRI housewife.  Her performance is dreadful, full of mealy smiles and nahin-faces that would be better suited to a saas-bahu serial than to a movie that appears to want to be understated.  This is the only remotely desi content in the film, and it's just cringe-inducing.

The early stages of Tala and Leyla's relationship are particularly fraught with facepalm moments of dreadful writing.  Leyla seems perpetually to attract bits of lint that Tala is compelled to pluck off of her, leading one to wonder why Sarif could not come up with other excuses for the two women to touch.  A tennis match provides an especially corny and heavy-handed metaphor for their growing attraction, complete with a breathlessly panted "That was amazing!" at its conclusion.  Tennis is not effete enough to convey Tala's aristocratic milieu, so she also plays a polo match, leading to one of the film's most nauseating exchanges:

Leyla (practically batting her eyelashes): I was worried you were going to fall, leaning across the horse like that!

Tala (with forced nonchalance): I like to take chances.

Filmi Geek:  Puke.  

Moments like this are bad enough, and the unsubtlety just gets thicker and thicker.  At its nadir, Leyla's sympathetic and proactive sister Yasmin (Amber Rose Revah) tries to figure out what's troubling Leyla, before the latter has come out even to herself.  The astute Yasmin notices a stack of books on Leyla's dresser - Jeanette Winterson, Sarah Waters, even Martina Navratilova's autobiography - and a k.d. lang CD nearby.  Really, Sarif?  Really?   And finally, the entire movie may be one extended setup for this chestnut of a punchline uttered by a gossipy Middle Eastern lady in its denouement:  "She's what? But some of my best friends are Lebanese!" 

The weak writing - both for the caricatured parents and the lovers themselves - hog-ties all the actors into stiff, formulaic performances. In contrast to all this woodenness, the movie's sex scenes are outstanding - fluid, passionate, and downright hot.  It seems that when Sarif cuts her actors loose and lets them just be and feel, they can do a lot more than when constrained by the fetters of Sarif's unnatural scripting.

The movie's 80-minute running time, while merciful, also forces it to short-change anything more than superficial examination of how either woman's cultural and religious heritage affects their prospect for life together.  Tala asserts that her reluctance to lead the "difficult" life in a lesbian relationship is due to the strictures of Jordanian society, but her family is so outrageously wealthy and her life so apparently divorced from Jordanian society that her reasoning is suspect.  Even a white American child of such a socially prominent and controlling mother would have a hard time rebelling against parental expectations; there is nothing especially Middle Eastern about this.  Meanwhile, Leyla's struggle against her culture is painted in the color of stereotype and seems to resolve itself the moment she comes out to herself and her family.  If the dialogue weren't so painful, it would be nice to have 40 minutes more of it, to give some more depth to aspects of these characters' lives that could have been more particularly Arabic and desi.      

Still, I wouldn't devote so many words to complaining about the weaknesses of a movie that doesn't also show a lot of potential to be better.  For all those stiffly executed, lazily written scenes, I Can't Think Straight offers moments of delicate thoughtfulness and sympathy for its characters.  These (plus the terrific sex scenes, which are worth watching again, for research purposes of course) make it worth cringing through the worst parts, if stories about love between women are as close to your heart as they are to mine.   

Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam (2009)

కొంచెం ఇష్టం కొంచెం కష్టం

I haven't explored much in the way of Telugu movies, or even any Indian films in languages other than Hindi.  This is not for want of curiosity - it's a matter of self-preservation.  I tend to go for depth - when I decide to learn about something, I become obsessed and compelled to learn as much as I can.  And so the rabbit hole of south Indian cinema beckons me, but I hesitate to jump in. 

A few months ago, though, I stumbled across the lovely song "En kadhal solla," from a Tamil film called Paiyya.  And I was rather taken with its scrumptious star, Tamannah.  So when I had a chance recently (thanks to Beth, from whom I stole the screenshot at the top of this post) to watch Tamannah in an entire film, Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam ("a little sweetness, a little sorrow"), I decided to dip my toe in. What I got was a movie that, as its title promises, is sometimes quite sweet indeed. But - while it thankfully never gets all the way to sorrowful - Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam does reach tedium more than once.  At its weakest, in its plodding and often stupid second half, the movie is part Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge, part The Parent Trap. And when it ventures into that territory, the movie is just not very interesting.

Geetha Subramanyam (Tamannah) has such a close relationship with her father Subramanyam (Nasser) that she made his name part of her own.  So Geetha is recalcitrant when Subramanyam sends her to Hyderabad to study.  Once there, though, she settles in comfortably, staying with her cousin's family, and developing a close mentoring relationship with a professor, Rajyalaxmi (Ramya Krishna).   And she meets a fellow student, Rajyalaxmi's son Siddhu (Siddharth), a skirt-chasing pleasure-seeker who doesn't impress her much at first.  But soon, she sees a tender side of him, and romance blossoms.  The stern Subramanyam, though, doesn't approve of her choice.  Siddhu's parents are separated, Subramanyam notes, and so Siddhu, with no role model for a successful partnership, would not make a suitable husband.  Siddhu offers Subramanyam a deal - if he reunites Rajyalaxmi with Siddhu's father Prakash (Prakash Raj), then Subramanyam will give his consent to the match between Siddhu and Geetha.  Now Siddhu faces only the small challenge of bringing his estranged parents back together.

This last leg of the story, the conceit of reuniting the estranged Rajyalaxmi and Prakash, is what drags Konchem ishtam konchem kastham into the weeds.   It is just too naïve and unbelievable to be satisfying.   Some movies are, of course, supposed to be fantasies, and one can be sure that an effervescent Telugu romance with impossibly beautiful young principals is not in any way striving for realism.   But the one-two punch of tired, silly plot elements - the girl who won't take a step without her father's approval, and the boy desperate to repair his broken childhood by rekindling romance between people who fell out of love two decades earlier - is just too much for the movie to bear; it bends under the strain, and grows insipid.   One is left wondering why we are made to sit through it - if the plot succeeds, it's facile and childish; and if it doesn't, why did the movie waste so much time on it?

Despite this weak final lap, the movie does show signs of smartness, though these are sometimes frustrating because the payoff is so unsatisfying.   The "rakish gadabout goes to great lengths to win over his girl's father" device is handled better here than in Dilwale dulhaniya le jayenge, where the insufferably arrogant Raj's approach is to lie and cheat the family at every turn.   Here, at least, Siddhu has to make good on his end of the bargain, asinine though it is - when he tries to deceive Subramanyam by hiring actors to play his parents, Geetha vetoes the scheme.  

And there is some unexpected modernness and maturity in the backstory of Rajyalaxmi and Prakash's separation, which was rooted in Rajyalaxmi's dissatisfaction with being left to the duties of housekeeping and childrearing while Prakash, taking her utterly for granted, pursued the challenges of building a business.   Even Subramanyam, as a stern father and leader of a traditional village, shows signs of progressiveness.  After all, Subramanyam insists that Geetha go study in Hyderabad because he wants to set a good example in the village in support of higher education for young women.   And it's not a knee-jerk "divorce is a blot on a family name" sort of reaction that drives his disapproval of Siddhu as a son-in-law, but the considerably more reasoned position regarding Siddhu's inexperience with healthy relationships.  Whether you buy that reasoning or not, at least it is an attempt to get beyond the expected clichés of an old-fashioned patriarch.

These signs of intelligent life aren't quite enough to overcome the eye-rolling tedium of the movie's second half - but fortunately, Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam offers enough other pleasures to make it, on balance, still an enjoyable watch.   It is colorfully and artfully shot, with a bright primary palate like a bowl of Skittles.   Some of the relationships are touchingly handled - Siddhu's relationship with Prakash faithfully represents the awkward chumminess that sometimes characterizes divorced dads trying to negotiate whether to be a parent or a buddy.  Rajyalaxmi is that rare appealing mature woman of substance, not a sort of character one gets to see too frequently in any culture's movies.   And I get a special pleasure from Geetha's attachment to her chosen surname, Subramanyam - she steadfastly refuses to take Siddhu's name on marriage, and in an adorable moment of capitulation Siddhu finally offers to become a Subramanyam himself.  It is always a treat to see a young woman asserting the first and strongest symbol of her identity in this way, and to see young men realizing that it's not a threat to them.

Above all else, though, when Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam works well, it rides the the appeal of its leads, Siddharth and Tamannah.  Key to any romantic story is that the audience get behind the pairing and root for it to succeed.  Konchem ishtam konchem kashtam invokes the mildly annoying trope in which the solid love of an uptight good girl can transform an immature jerk into a nice guy - but there is enough of the genuine in Siddhu's emergent, gentle sweetness to make this forgivable.   Siddhu does beat up a bunch of thugs (as, I am told, any Telugu hero worth his salt must), but he does it out of Geetha's sight, and refreshingly, his fisticuff prowess has no influence on her feelings for him.  On balance, he is a just a cute guy who has a bit of growing up to do, and watching him do it is not an unpleasant way to spend a movie - especially when he cuts loose in the movies stupendous songs, like this one in which he expresses his frustration with Subramanyam.

 

And then there is Tamannah. Oh, my - Tamannah. She is a little younger - okay, significantly younger - than most heroines who make my heart race, and I admit I feel a bit like pervy uncle at times watching her on screen while my brain short-circuits and the only thoughts I can express go something like this: I WANT TO LICK.

 

(Watch past the horrible Black Eyed Peas song in the beginning; it gets better, I promise.)

Apart from being most lickable and blessed with magnificent hips, Tamannah is more than adequate to what her role asks of her - which is really not all that much more than being fetching, whether laughingly scratching the faces of people she dislikes out of photographs, pouting, or tossing her head in uptight indignation.  Tamannah has the art of being fetching down cold, and she's just a delight to watch.

All the songs are terrific, both the slick compositions that are unmistakably Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, and the colorful, jubilant picturizations.  The songs, in fact, are really where this movie and its adorable leads shine the most brightly.  The story may be artless, the comedy side plots a mixed bag.  (These revolve around Geetha's cricket-obsessed uncle (Brahmanandam) or Siddhu's inexplicably middle-aged chum (Venu Madhav).)   But get Tamannah and Siddharth together on a screen sparkling with gorgeous bursts of vibrant color - preferably with a passel of dancers and one of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's springy songs behind them - and you'll quickly forget how laboriously you had to slog through the scenes between.  These sometime sweetnesses really do make the whole worthwhile.

 

Tamannah playing rugby in the rain? Kids doing air guitar? What's not to love?

Delhi-6 (2009)

दिल्ली-६

A recent Outlook India piece by Sunil Menon (one that also happened to mention this blog, I'm delighted to say) lamented the absence of a sense of place in many Hindi films.  Traditionally, Menon argues, geographical realism yields to movie magic, be it in masala films that are "officially headquartered in cloud-cuckoo-land (with branches in Switzerland)," or even in more serious films that make only passing invocation of locale through picture-postcard shots of landmarks. 

But my own experience of Hindi movies of late has been quite different from this.   From Kahaani's vibrant Calcutta, to Chhoti si baat's bustling Bombay, and even Tere ghar ke samne's romantic traipse up and down the spire of Qutub Minar, I have felt exquisitely connected to locale in many movies I have watched in recent months.  Almost certainly this is a lingering effect of my first trip to India, taken earlier this year, which converted many of the colors and locales of the movies from flat scenery to real, swirling, sensual associations in my mind.  One of the most potent experiences I had - one that made India pop off the movie screen and into the rest of my senses - was a bicycle-rickshaw ride and walk through Chandni Chowk on just the second full day of my trip.  Rakeysh Omprasad Mehra's Delhi-6 whirls through those very same churning streets, and watching this excellent movie closes the feedback loop of my experience - watching Hindi movies has made India a fascination for me of limitless depth and life, and seeing India inperson has made Hindi movies breathe with a new vivacity.

Annapurna (Waheeda Rehman) has been living with her son and his family in New York for many years, but her only wish is to return to her home in Delhi and spend the end of her life there.  Her grandson Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan) takes her there, and meets the extended family of relatives and neighbors who welcome Annapurna back into their crowded Chandni Chowk lives.   Roshan is thrilled by the sensory overload of the neighborhood, the brilliant pageantry of the Ram Leela plays, the broad spectrum of people he meets there.  He makes a bumpy adjustment to the realities of life in old Delhi - city streets choked by the holy spectacle of a cow giving birth, the arbitrary exercise of power (and reaping of baksheesh) by the police.  He is caught up, too, in the fear and excitement that grips the city because of seemingly random capers of an enigmatic assailant, Kala Bandar (the black monkey).  As Roshan gets pulled deeper into the mystery of Kala Bandar, he becomes a part of Delhi 6, and Delhi 6 becomes a part of him.

Among the many pleasures of Delhi-6 is Roshan's broad sense of wonder as he greets the tumult of Chandni Chowk for the first time.  As Roshan gazes across the crowd and exclaims "Awesome!", I can't help but share in that wonder and relive it with him.  Roshan is a foreigner, despite his family roots in the community - he grew up in America, speaks Hindi only as well as is expedient for the story, and greets the city and its inhabitants with wide-eyed fascination (and occasional indignation) that is palpably identifiable to a firang like myself. 

The people Roshan meets there provide the texture that brings the location to life.  Central among these is a close family friend, the avuncular Ali Baig (Rishi Kapoor), one of the wealthier inhabitants of the neighborhood, who becomes a father figure and confidant to Roshan.  Rishi Kapoor is delightful in this role, a more natural performance than his scene-chewing in Luck by Chance.  Less loveable but just as compelling is the cranky Madangopal (Om Puri), father of Bittu (Sonam Kapoor), who hides her makeup and navel-piercing from her family and dreams of Bombay and stardom.  Madangopal's ambitious but somewhat stupid brother Jaigopal (Pavan Malhotra) teases the apparent simpleton Gobar (Atul Kulkarni), who of course turns out to be smarter and wiser than anyone gives him credit for.  A sinister money-lender (Prem Chopra) wields his power and influence like the jeweled walking-stick he carries.  The sweet-shop owner Mamdu (Deepak Dobriyal) greets Roshan with overflowing warmth and offers of sweets; he declares, "Bhookh mitane ke liye kutte khate hain - insaan khaate hain jodne ke liye." (Dogs eat to sate hunger - people eat to bond with each other.)

I adore this sort of neighborhood ensemble cast that brings to a movie a vibrancy, an essence, a palpable sense of life in a particular place.  This was something I loved, too, about Shyam Benegal's Welcome to Sajjanpur - and here, as in that movie, Divya Dutta once again utterly fascinates in a very brief but completely riveting role.  She plays Jalebi, a low-caste woman who collects trash and, with a compelling mixture of viciousness and sadness, harrasses neighborhood boys who cringe superstitiously away from her.  And she is a harbinger of the divisive mentality that lurks below Chandni Chowk's affable surface.

The people generate the pulse of Chandni Chowk, all these religiously, ethnically, economically diverse souls cramped together in the narrow galis of the old city.  And they live together in relative harmony, until the tension of Kala Bandar drives wedges between them, splintering the neighborhood.  Roshan, of course, ultimately helps to repair the shattered community.  But he is not so much the prodigal savior, as is Shah Rukh Khan's character in Swades.  Roshan is not a smarmy hero, swooping in with great knowledge from the West to rescue the backward locals.  Instead, he is something of an accidental savior.   After his initial tourist reaction to Delhi 6 subsides - and when internecine tension threatens to set the neighborhood ablaze - his first instinct is to flee back to the comfort of the US.  But finally, moved by love (both for Annapurna and for Bittu), Roshan sees, and takes, an opportunity for self-sacrifice. 

It is a very satisfying character arc, in a very satisfying movie.  Roshan's growth, the superb cast of richly diverse and colorfully sketched characters, the swirling sense of Chandni Chowk, the beautiful array of A.R. Rahman's songs, all combine and resonate with my own memories of Delhi, for a movie I am sure I will return to whenever I want to relive my thrilling afternoon in Delhi 6.

Luck by Chance (2009)

Irrational love for The Dirty Picture notwithstanding, I do not usually have much patience for movies that purport to be self-reflective about the movie industry.  Even the undeniable artistry of Kaagaz ke phool is somewhat obscured for me by that movie's whining about how haaaaard it is to be an artist in the crass, cold environment of commercial cinema.  My experience of Zoya Akhtar's otherwise very good Luck by Chance suffers a bit from the same affliction. 

Sona (Konkona Sen Sharma) is an actor with dreams of landing a big role and becoming a star.  She works tirelessly at bit parts in mainstream productions, and waits for the break she's been promised by a shady producer (Alyy Khan).  Sona meets another ambitious young actor, Vikram (Farhan Akhtar), and the two connect and start a relationship.  In the meantime, big-time producer Rommy Rolly (Rishi Kapoor) is trying to complete his next blockbuster, a star vehicle for the A-lister Zaffar Khan (Hrithik Roshan) and launch for newcomer Nikki (Isha Sharvani), the daughter of 70s silver screen legend Neena (Dimple Kapadia).  When Zaffar abruptly withdraws from the film, an opportunity arises for Vikram - he lands the part, and soon is riding the relentless scree of studio promotion, media attention, and superstar-level temptation.  Vikram's movie is a hit, but his relationship with Sona takes a hit. 

Laments about the hardships faced by industry outsiders do ring somewhat hollow in the all-Akhtar extravaganza that is Luck by Chance.  And in addition to a supporting cast packed with industry elder statesmen, the movie sports actor cameos to a degree not seen since Om Shanti Om - a sure sign of a moviemaker's movie if there ever was one (though I admit my heart broke a little when I spotted Manish Acharya).  Nevertheless, apart from a bit of eyerolling at this (and a slightly draggy middle section) Luck by Chance is a strong effort whose best points stand out much more than its weaknesses detract.  The contrasting arcs of its two principals - Vikram and Sona - are especially well-rendered.  Vikram's abrupt rise and equally abrupt - if predictable - fall serves a sharp counterpoint to Sona's hard slog through obscurity and squelched hope toward a peaceful and mature landing. 

Vikram's arc, in particular, offers the incontrovertible stamp of a movie written by a woman.  Vikram is seduced by success in no time flat, and acts like a complete asshole, making not even an attempt to resist the artlessly forward advances of the vapid, unappealing Nikki.  Sona understandably grieves her lost love - but when Vikram begs for a second chance, she calls him out for the self-absorbed man-child he is.   In most movies written by men, self-absorbed man-children behave like complete assholes as a matter of course, and are usually forgiven and get what they want all the same.  Not so Vikram; Zoya Akhtar makes sure that his actions have reasonably satisfying consequences. 

As for Sona's arc, I wish the movie were less coy about the nature of Sona's quid pro quo with the producer Chaudhary who promises her a second-heroine role in a movie he is always on the cusp of making. It seems from the innuendo of the movie's opening scene that the arrangement includes Sona doing time on the casting couch, but the movie otherwise gives the subject very wide berth, and nothing is made of it after that exchange.  Where Luck By Chance is fearless about poking a stick at so many industry pecadilloes - from the favoring of talentless star kids to the out-of-proportion influence wielded by gossip rags - it is telling that the movie treads so cautiously on the subject of swapping sex for roles. 

It is perhaps redundant to praise a Konkona Sen Sharma performance, but I won't let that stop me.  She brings an outstandingly moving wounded delicacy to Sona.  As Sona's dreams fade she seems to become wearier and wearier; her posture droops and her expression takes on a more exhausted aspect.   Konkona also conveys the real work of acting - when Sona finishes a take, her face and body visibly relax. Always looking to improve her craft, Sona never fails to buttonhole someone on set and ask whether the take was good.  There is another contrast with Vikram here that is surely intentional.  Vikram studies also - he practices dancing and martial arts; he is chastised by a workshop instructor for being too understated in his delivery.  Vikram is studying to be a Hero, not an actor.

And as a hero, I am not yet fully sold on Farhan Akhtar.  He's a very good-looking fellow (just like his father) but his perpetually dazed expression does not convey a great deal of emotional range, and he speaks (just like his father) as though he's still finishing dinner and has a cold.  I will reserve judgment until I've seen more of his movies. 

The supporting cast lends a great deal of texture to Luck by Chance's portrayal of how the sausage gets made in mainstream Hindi cinema.  Dimple Kapadia is always riveting - sometimes I wonder if she is not simply the most beautiful woman in the movies, bar none.  In Being Cyrus, she made an aborrent character thrillingly appealing, and she calls on some of the same art for the slightly more sympathetic Neena, who is part over-the-hill superstar, part horrifying pageant mom.  Dimple brings a measure of subtlety to this blend that makes Neena the most compelling character in the film.  Rishi Kapoor, as the emotional producer Rommy, does a lot more scene chewing in a performance with a lot less depth, but he's nevertheless a lot of fun to watch. 

In sum, if you do not share my mild aversion to industry navel-gazing, Luck by Chance has a lot to offer.   Most movie lovers would be fascinated by the sort of insider peek it offers behind the camera and into production offices.  Toss in an excellent Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy soundtrack (including, over the opening credits, a moving montage of behind-the-scenes workers from set-builders to costume-tailors) and that vast menu of supporting roles and cameos, and on balance you have a well-made movie worth watching - even if it will never be a favorite of mine. 

Iqbal (2005)

इक़्बाल

I have said this before, but I have a soft spot for sports movies.  Even if the drama is a little manufactured, the conclusion foreordained, a well-made sports movie can still generate the right frisson, the little thrill of shared victory that sports allows the folks in the stands to share with the athletes on the field.  And so, I had high expectations for Nagesh Kukunoor's Iqbal, a sports movie with the additional benefits of a village setting and appealing, talented cast.   With that hat trick going for it, I thought Iqbal would surely be an instant favorite.  For reasons I still can't pin down even as I write, though, this movie misses the mark.

Iqbal (Shreyas Talpade) is a deaf-mute young man, a farmer's son with big dreams.  He inherited a passion for cricket from his mother (Prateeksha Lonkar), and spends long afternoons in the countryside setting up wickets and bowling them down with impressive precision.  With the help of his hearing little sister Khadija (Shweta Prasad), Iqbal earns a tryout at a nearby swanky cricket academy led by a famous teacher known just as Guruji (Girish Karnad).  He is soon ejected from the academy to appease a jealous and egotistical boy whose rich father's wallet holds more influence with the academy than Iqbal's talent - the naive Iqbal first unpleasant lesson about what really drives the machinery of competitive-class cricket, but not his last.  Almost at the end of hope, Iqbal discovers that the village drunk, Mohit (Naseeruddin Shah), was a star bowler in his youth, and he prevails on the reluctant man to coach him.  Mohit's training - and his personal influence - earn Iqbal an opportunity with the Andhra Pradesh state team.  But Iqbal has more than deafness and lack of formal training to overcome.  His father (Yatin Karyekar) is dead set against cricket, and wants Iqbal working the farm by his side.  And Guruji, too, has machinations of his own in the works. 

I am puzzled as to why this movie does not fire on all cylinders for me. It is not the performances, which are all fine and fairly natural.  As the mute Iqbal, Shreyas Talpade is as sweet and likable as he ever is.  Iqbal has no dialogue, and so Talpade must rely on other forms of expression to convey his character's central dilemma, the conflict between his dreamy nature on the one hand, and his love for his father and sense of responsibility to his family on the other.  Talpade is more than up to this challenge.  Naseeruddin Shah, in contrast, is not challenged at all as the wisecracking drunken has-been Mohit, who dries up in a hurry when Iqbal needs him to.   But even if it is not his most nuanced performance ever, Shah is appealing enough.  The best performances are from Prateeksha Lonkar and Yatin Karyekar as Iqbal's parents; Karyekar is especially compelling, offering a combination of tenderness and sternness that is believable and sympathetic.

Iqbal also offers a pleasing window onto village life, the kind that I usually enjoy.   Iqbal's father is a hardworking farmer, always at risk of losing his property.  But he wants better for his children, and the way he runs his family suggests a dream of upward mobility that is very engaging.  Iqbal's sister Khadija is studious and book-hungry, and she seems thoroughly encouraged in these pursuits.   As for Iqbal, when he is not practicing his bowling technique, he tends the family's buffaloes, whom he has named for national-team bowlers (including his favorite, Kapil Dev, who makes a cameo appearance late in the movie).  The scenes in which Iqbal leads the buffaloes to pasture and sets up his practice pitch provide Kukunoor many opportunities for picturesque landscape shots full of billowing meadows and rakish palm trees.

Despite its strengths, though, Iqbal remains a fairly by-the-book sports movie - dream, obstacle, glimmer of hope, training montage, setback, more training montage, more hope, more setback, improbable last-minute turnaround victory.  All of this is fine if it is well-executed, but the sports aspect of Iqbal is, unfortunately, one of its weaker aspects.  The movie does not provide a great sense of cricket as a team sport, partly due to Iqbal's isolated, outsider status, but also because in the story's arc, the rest of his team simply doesn't matter.  The result is that the sports arc of Iqbal packs less punch than that of Dil bole hadippa, Chak de India, or Lagaan - each of those, in its own way, offers a larger context for the big game than a single character's apotheosis.

And then there is the question of why Iqbal is deaf and mute.  In fretting to understand what this element adds to the movie, I have come up with several theories, some narrative and others symbolic.  Perhaps it is meant to augment Iqbal's isolation, providing a coccoon for his focused pursuit of his dream.  Or, maybe it's presented as a quotidian aspect of village life - such disabilities are perhaps more common in communities where quality medical care for childhood diseases is wanting.  In this reading, Iqbal's deafness is just another aspect of who he is, shown in the same way is shown to be Muslim - not to make a point, just to add color to the movie's tapestry.  Perhaps his deafness is a device to increase the odds against him - but if so, the movie drops this thread very abrubtly when Iqbal joins the Andhra team, as there is not even lip service paid to any communication problems with his coach or teammates there.  None of these readings is very satisfying - they read like post-hoc attempts to justify a story element that ultimately feels tacked-on, a cheap ploy for sympathy that is brushed aside when it is no longer expedient. 

This spotty handling of Iqbal's deafness perhaps gets to the heart of why Iqbal is merely a nice movie and not a superb one.   The movie suffers from a bit of tone confusion - the filmi facets of Iqbal's deafness clash against the delicate, arty portrayal of his family life, and the gears don't quite mesh.   It's a sweet movie, a nice try, and has a lot that makes it worth watching.  But I can't help feeling that it's just not as good as it could have been.  It has a good solid innings, but it doesn't quite hit a century.

 

Jab We Met (2007)

Something I have learned about myself during my several years of watching Hindi movies is that I actually like pure love stories.  I'm content to watch a movie whose only plot point is how - not even whether - the principals will get together.  As long as the movie is well made, the characters enjoyable to spend time with, and the pairing adequately motivated, a romance alone can be enough to hold my interest.  Imtiaz Ali's Jab We Met ("when we met") is such a movie.  It doesn't have any cricket matches, or any goonda seeking redemption. It is largely unburdened by broader themes, like communalism, independence, or justice, that often distinguish masala films.  And yet, it's an engaging and sweet romance between two likeable people - and for that alone, a solidly entertaining movie. 

Aditya Kashyap (Shahid Kapoor) is a depressed, disaffected executive, the heir to his late father's huge but ailing industrialist empire.  In a suicidal funk, Aditya one day walks out of a business meeting and just keeps going.  He boards a train out of Bombay, with the seeming intention - to the extent he even has one - to leap to his death once the train hits speed in the countryside.  A kinetic young passenger, Geet (Kareena Kapoor), accosts him with a wall of chatter, and unwittingly saves his life.  Aditya escorts Geet to her family's home in Punjab, where her enormous, lively family takes him for her paramour.  But Geet confesses to Aditya that she intends to elope with a fellow she met in Shimla.  Aditya again hits the road with Geet, this time taking her to the Himachal Pradesh hill station Manali, to her Anshuman (Tarun Arora).  Along the way, Geet's vivacity touches Aditya - he falls in love, but willingly leaves her to a happy life with Anshuman.  Revived and inspired by Geet's moxie, he returns to his business and dives in with renewed vigor, setting the company back on track.  Soon, though, Aditya learns that things between Geet and Anjuman haven't gone as planned.  He sets off on another journey to find out what happened to Geet, and to help her set her life on a better course, as she helped him. 

Jab We Met draws on well-worn, even tired, romance elements.  There is nothing new in the story of a garrulous young woman wearing down the reserve of a long-suffering man.  The boisterous Punjabi family, full of strapping men equally eager to protect their womenfolk as to break into a bhangra, is another time-worn filmi trope.   Jab We Met does not exactly offer a fresh take on these themes, but it does present them with enough craft to make their very familiarity engaging, like cinematic comfort food.  

And Jab We Met is not entirely without originality.  Geet's uncompromising independence is a fairly uncommon feature in a Hindi romantic heroine.  I have seen its like before largely in movies that are close adaptations of western romances, like Pyar to hona hi tha, or Chori chori.  In those movies, the heroines have no family to speak of - their independence is wrought from necessity.  Geet, though, does have very a strong bond with her family.  She is on her own because she wants to be, because she feels a compelling drive to write her own destiny.  As she explains to Aditya in a thoughtful moment, Geet will be happy in life so long as she makes her own choices - even if she makes mistakes, they will be her mistakes.  This self-claimed autonomy gives Geet an unexpected depth in an otherwise by-the-numbers story, and is the greatest distinguishing strength of Jab We Met.  

A character like Geet presents Imtiaz Ali with a tough challenge. How do you make Geet's effusive (and often annoying) prattling get under Aditya's skin without also driving the audience to distraction?  It's guaranteed by the script that Aditya is eventually charmed by it, but the same cannot be said for the rest of us. Ali puts his actors to work walking this fine line, and while the balance ultimately comes out in the right place for me, I can't say with conviction that it would for everyone.  Kareena Kapoor seem a divisive star - I know many who positively hate her as an actor.  But she handles Geet well, toning it down when necessary to let some thoughtfulness or vulnerability show through.  Shahid Kapoor, too, proves his acting chops in key moments.  When Aditya leaves Geet in Manali with Anshuman, Shahid delivers a smile that is warm and sincere, and yet tinged with sadness.  It is a fairly subtle expression, and Shahid nails it.

As a final word, Jab We Met turns out to be a great movie to see as I get ready for my first trip to India in just a couple of weeks - its many road sequences deliver loads of lovely travel scenery that just make my heart race in anticipation.  From the Punjab to Himachal Pradesh and back again, there are soaring mountainscapes, idyllic fields, and supreme local color.  A highlight is Kareena's song "Yeh ishq hai", shot in Manali and packed with fascinating Tibetan dancers in gorgeous festival costumes.