Cinemaah

When DDLJ Met Roman Holiday

Movies seldom go beyond the happy reunion of the opposites who attract each other, for no other reason that they happen to be thrown together. But if the idea of romance is a whirlwind tour of pretty locations, and the happily-ever-after is dancing in the fields of Punjab, then it is definitely outdated.

Princesses and commoners have been circling each other since Roman Holiday (maybe earlier and certainly after) and every film that has a road trip as a love trap has been recycling that film or its Indianised version Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Over two decades later, Shah Rukh Khan playing a Raj named Harinder ‘Harry’ has to escort a young woman around, and even now, he believes white women are use-and-throw, while Indian women are to treated like “delicate porcelain vases.”  Even if the “vase” in this film, Sejal (Anushka Sharma) is a spoilt rich girl with a law degree she has little use for; she is engaged to be married to a rich Rupen, and anticipates the boredom in her married life, so wants to have a look-but-don’t-touch “honeymoon” with the tour guide. She is not, as Harry(she calls him Hairy with a Gujarati accent), says, a “cheapghatiya woman who would run away with the tour guide.” What’s unsaid is that if she were to be that kind of women, he would be 

disappointed.

The confused signals apart,  Jab Harry Met Sejal is several years outdated, and also built on an unconvincing premise.Sejal loses her engagement ring, and while the family returns to India, they leave her behind with Harry to hunt all over Europe for the ring—as if a diamond ring would be under restaurant tables or pavement cracks days later she lost it.  Harry does not want to get entangled with the bossy Sejal, and tries to put her off by saying he is a womanizer. That doesn’t faze her and they are off on the journey—always impeccably dressed and ready to dance after a night out on the tiles (literally).

Sejal claims to be offended that Harry doesn’t find her desirable (“layak is the word she uses), but she also knows that despite all her provocation, he is “safe.” Because in the Imtiaz Ali universe, the sheets don’t get mussed.

Of course, it’s a given that romance happens because the man is lean-mean Shah Rukh Khan, not his overweight buddy and she a glamorous young woman, not a mousy “sister type.”  That he can do this cheesy love story a million times and still not looked bored, is to his credit. Anushka Sharma gives more pluck to Sejal than she deserves. The music, camerawork, costumes are all fine, but the plot was lost long ago.

Bleak City

Gangster movies set in Mumbai have been overdone; it’s time for filmmakers to look for other dystopias and cinematographer-turned-director Shanker Raman’s film Gurgaon has found it in that extension of New Delhi, which is, however, light years apart in spirit.

With its gleaming malls, lavish bungalows and smooth flyovers,Gurgaon has become a metaphor for soulless progress; the development of the Haryana town put money and power into the hands of those who brazenly misuse it, and left behind the unfortunate farmers whose land was grabbed. In a scene in the film an architect shows the model of a new colony to a poor man, who points out that it stands where his village used to be.  

Haryana is, by all reports, a misogynistic society where female infanticide is carried out with impunity. The rich young men swagger sure that their dads’ wealth and connections will protect them.  Kehri Singh (Pankaj Tripathi) is one such baron, who is drowning in drink. His son Nikki (Akshay Oberoi) throws money around and has that arrogance that comes from entitlement; his brother Chintu (Ashish Verma) and buddy Rajvir (Arjun Fojdar) silently follow his lead. They are the kind of guys who, when denied entry into a nightclub, kidnap a musician (Srinivas Sunderrajan)  scheduled to play there.

When Nikki needs to repay a bookie, he plans to kidnap his adopted sister Preet (Ragini Khanna), whom he hates since she is his father’s pet. In this male-dominated world, women have little value—the mother (Shalini Vatsa) hovers around cooking and serving meals.

The abduction goes wrong, and while Kehri’s old friend Bhupi (Amir Bashir) tries to track down Preet, the film slowly reveals the family’s past and the crimes that made Kehri Singh what he is. 

The plot is not a whodunit, but an attempt to point out that every action may have an unexpected reaction. And, rather naively in today’s age, it is insistent on punishment for all the wrongdoing. Which is certainly commendable, but also, for one particular character, unbelievable and clichéd. At least two characters, Preet’s white friend (Anna Ador) and the musician are mostly redundant.

What Raman does well, with the help of Vivek Shah’s brooding camerawork, is capture the ominous contrasts of the place, and the lingering discontent of the characters. Tripathi, in a well-deserved lead role, channels a mumbling Don Corleone, but one whose best days are behind him. Oberoi gets the haughty, devil-may-care Nikki down pat, so does Vatsa as the woman who tries to keep her dysfunctional family together.

In the end, what lets the film down is that it is not a pleasant or edifying watch, nor can the audience invest in the fate of any character.