Saturday, November 23, 2013
Gori Tere Pyaar Mein
Scraping The Bottom
Punit Malhotra trying, in a well-meaning way, to show the Dharma Productions universe how the other half lives, could have done a minimal amount of research beyond watching a DVD of Lagaan. Then he would have known that a collector and a zamindar is not the same thing. A collector is an IAS officer, not a village hick who sits around in a haveli, surrounded by lathi-wielding men.
He would also have had his “NGO type” heroine, know that it is not environmentally sound to build a huge brick-and-mortar bridge over a tiny river for a village of 270 people. He would also, perhaps, have known the difference between an architect and an engineer.
His excuse would be that Gori Tere Pyaar Mein is not realistic cinema. Point taken. So it should work as a mainstream romcom. It fails there too. It doesn’t make you laugh, or cry, or come out of the theatre smiling and humming.
Imran Khan plays Sriram, a Bangalore Tamilian playboy, who cares about nothing but himself. His soap opera South Indian family stands around berating him for his callousness. His parents find a suitable bride for him, but Vasudha (Shradda Kapoor) is in love with another, and after hearing of Sriram’s broken romance with Delhi girl Dia (Kareena Kapoor Khan), encourages him to run away from the marriage mandap.
Dia is the “NGO type” who jumps into everything from anti-corruption rallies to making documentaries on sex workers to looking after AIDS affected kids and feeding stray dogs. When she gets too huffy about a land deal done by Sriram, he ticks her off for being a phony bleeding heart.
Next thing he knows, she has left for a Gujarat village called Jhumli, with her wardrobe of ethnic costumes, silver jewellery and a lifetime supply of kohl, to ostensibly help the poor villagers build a proper bridge in place of a shaky ropeway -- the villagers look neither poor nor in need of help. Anyway, Sriram lands up to fetch Dia back, and gets dragged into the bridge battle. The enemy being the collector (Anupam Kher), who wants to build a chemical factory in Jhumli.
The film is as shallow as the characters accuse each other of being, and worse, it’s boring. Imran Khan has done this role so many times, he can breeze through it, so can Kareena Kapoor, who just has to tone down her exuberance because she is playing a serious character—occasionally, a what-the-hell expression slips through.Gori Tere Pyaar Mein is just a silly piece of fluff, notable only for its song focussing on the ‘toonh’ or, to say it with Delhi politeness, the backside.
Labels: Cinemaah
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