Review: Lootera

Review: Lootera

It is a good one. Very well made. Yes, you should watch it because such films are not made again and again. It is a tale of charm, love, trust, betrayal and hope, all set in the faraway days of the 1950s.

With Lootera, Vikramaditya Motwane delivers a masterpiece - almost. The story is great. With all the yesteryears movies about sone-ki-moorti and laakhon-ke-heere, this one shows a lootera in a different light- as a lover shattered in life, yet clinging on to hope - someone else's hope. The social setting is one of phenomenal change, an India being born. Motwane has brilliantly captured the sentiment of those times, and brought it to us who know nothing about then.  Ranvir Singh plays Varun Srivastava with honesty and well, more honesty. It is a character come alive. Sonakshi Sinha plays the quintessential Bengali woman - she is beautiful, passionate and fiery. She is also heartbroken and dying. Sonakshi has delivered a performance very different from her previous glamorous roles - she deserves applause. The other characters are played very well too. However, actors like Divya Dutta appear unused. You don’t put an actress like her in your movie, and dole out a few pathetic one liners to her. Even in the tiny screen space provided to her, Dutta makes herself seen.

The music is amazing. Beautiful lyrics, compositions and extremely well sung. Bhattacharya and Trivedi have delivered a gift to the music industry, because this is quality work. It blends beautifully into the whole setting and story.

A couple of things however do take the charm away. Pakhi knows Varun is injured but acts as if she doesn’t. why? Then again, he kills his friend. That is an important part of the story, but isn't given much importance. The second part is definitely O.Henry's story. But it just doesn’t strike so well. For those who have read "The Last Leaf", it may appear overdone, for those who haven't, it may be too subtle. And the way she discovers the leaf, that certainly could have been better. That is where the movie slips - it builds up to that moment beautifully - and then, nothing. She knows she has got life, and he is probably dying. He gets shot, she looks at the leaf with laughter but in that defining moment of life and death, the are apart. Nothing seems to join them - there is no closure to all the love and sacrifice. There is the hint of redemption though. The ending is why the movie is "almost" a masterpiece, not quite there.
The locales are refreshing and beautiful. However, there is sloppy camera work at some points. When Varun returns to Pakhi's house and walks in the snow, the whole thing seems to be hodge-podge screen work. As if it really was shot in the fifties.  

To summarize, it’s a must watch. Skip it only if you can't stand slow paced romances.

Review- Those Pricey Thakur Girls.- Anuja Chauhan

Those Pricey Thakur Girls- Anuja Chauhan (Jan 2013)

Anuja Chauhan's new book comes across as breezy and entertaining.

The main plot is pretty predictable. An insanely handsome, flirtatious dude, and a beautiful posh lass. Of course, the reader knows that who is going to end up with who. But Chauhan succeeds at making it not boring. In fact, it is as much a page turner as it could be - you want to know how exactly are they going to end up together. The whats and the whys are not there, like they should not be for any self respecting rom-com.

But the real enjoyment lies in the vividly alive portrait of Delhi society in the late eighties as Chauhan paints it. The card-sessions, and teas are immaculately presented, as are the continuous conversations. The dialogues really add a lot of spunk and merriment to the novel. They are laced with pun and some detectable wit, not to mention the oh-so-dilli-waala style jo-to is present throughout. Her advertising career shows in her intelligently crafted dialogues.

She also has this unique style of writing. Conversations are essential but they don’t drive the narrative. The narrative makes small jumps in time and space that keep you at a fast pace. The pace aside, there are portions where you are distantly reminded of Jane Austen's innocent style and vivid social representation. (No, I am not implying a comparison!)

Chauhan does deserve credit for providing an extremely strong backdrop to the whole story. Behind all the niceties, and  embroidered table covers, Chauhan gives a glimpse into the very disturbing world of dirty politics, and the anti-Sikh pogrom of the eighties. She also brings in the powder coated face of state sponsored media. In case your frivolous rom-com spirits are getting a thumbs-down because of the serious stuff, don’t worry. She never lets it gets intense. Just when she could have gone further, and dived into messy waters, she swims back to Hailey Road, and engrosses you in the whirlwind romance of the beautiful Debjani and the D for Dylan.

The stubbly Dylan Singh Shekhawat is sure to get girls swooning. Who wouldn't for a tall, cowboy jawed,  half Christian-half Rajput fiery journalist from the eighties who owns a Mac. That may excuse him and Chauhan for the mathematically unexplained free fall with which he saves Chachiji. How do you jump off a building, and save another person falling below you by changing her trajectory of falling in the horizontal direction? But then he is the hero, and this is the land of Bollywood.
Being a Muslim  and a Kashmiri, I did not like the digs Chauhan took at both these attributes. She may be forgiven of course, because they weren't directed at me (!), there was no Muslim character in the novel, and the Kashmiri pandit boy whom her character calls a terrorist is not at all important for the story. And yes, why exactly the Thakur girls are pricey is something you'll have to figure out on your own as you go along.

Overall the book is a treat for its refreshing style, for its lead characters and yeah, the romance.