Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011)

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (You won't meet life again… right?) is another glam, modernist Hindi film, similar in style to Dil Chahta Hai - but thankfully much less irritating. Okay, we may be the only ones who hate that film.

Moving along! BFFs Kabir (Abhay Deol), Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and Imran (Farhan Akhtar) run the usual gamut of Nice Guy, Moneyzilla and Comic Relief. Nice Guy Kabir is getting married to (incidentally the Tamil-French girl from Dev D with an interesting name!) Natasha (Kalki (!) Koechlin) and the boys go on a long bachelor party through Spain. Along the way, aided by periodic jolts of adrenaline rushes (scuba diving, skydiving, bull… running) and emotional outbursts of tears, shouts and hormones, the boys grow up and grow closer. The moral of the story: marriage is optional! Also, money is nice but also optional!

The film's heart is in the right place - by which we mean it's gauged the pulse of a common (or certainly common-feeling) trend among young, modernizing Indians: the anxiety of marriage, the difficulty in reconciling traditional obligations with Western notions of romance, freedom, individualism, blah blah. Generally, the earnest, if unimaginative, narrative is fine. But there are definite sections that drag - to whit: Hrithik Roshan puts in a nice, jagged performance as the dark, tormented London financier Arjun. His slow emergence from the shell of Scrooge into the sunlight of Zen scuba diver Laila (a tolerable Katrina Kaif) is a nice, poignant narrative arc. But if the PPCC saw one more shot of a brooding, troubled Hrithik… oh my God.

OH. MY. GOD.

Similarly, Kabir's pre-marital woes and Imran's "missing father" angst were dragged out way beyond acceptable limits of storytelling discourse. Incidentally, Imran's missing father was NOT played by Javed Akhtar, which would have been meta and cool. Instead, he is played by a great pillar of Hindi actingdom, one of the PPCC favorites, and a veteran of Missing Father roles. We'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Sameer Loudon Bah.

Like the rest of the film, the song/dance stuff was anemic and largely unnecessary, though there was a surprisingly nice flamenco-Hindi fusion bit. Olé! Another unexpected treat was the final Adrenaline Rush of Character Development - Pamplona's running of the bulls - which was filmed with great skill. A further notable sequence, filmmaking-wise, was the boys' skydive: a meditative, enchanting bit.

In other news, Akhtar's Don 2 is in post-production (joy) and we have finally found a lovely fat tome about Vedic India (The First Spring by Abraham Eraly, apparently not out in the US yet? wtffff).

As a kid in our theater cried out upon sensing the incipient final credits: KHATM!

My Name Is Khan (2010)

My Name is Khan, the polished new venture of Karan Johar, is a sugarpuff film. It is very sweet, very earnest and, maybe in spite of or because of this, lovable. It also reunites the dynamite duo of Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan - those quirky, jittery fuzzies who made the 1990s such heady, halcyon days. Ahh, yes.

It is also charming enough that we can forgive SRK for the pain he brought us back in 2008, and we are now back on the SRK train. Ahh, to look forward to something... and be rewarded! What a nice feeling.

The film's first act follows the standard TV-movie "Disease of the Week" narrative arc: there is a brief prologue showing Rizwan Khan (Tanay Chheda, of Slumdog Millionaire), a young boy with Asperger's syndrome, facing ridicule, misunderstandings and other difficultes - and, thanks to his courage, as well as his wise, gentle mother's (Zarina Wahab) shelter, his eventual triumph. There is his maturation into a Rain Man-esque Shah Rukh Khan, and his move from India to San Francisco. There, he meets and courts the lovely Mandira (Kajol), a hairdresser and single mother. Mandira's charismatic tween son, Sameer (Yuvaan Makaar), eventually accepts Rizwan as friend and father figure, the adults marry, and the three form a happy, glowing family. This act is easy-going and lovable; it conquered us with little difficulty.

It is, however, the second act which is The Point of My Name is Khan, and here things falter and wander. 9/11 happens, anti-Islamic paranoia spreads, and an indirectly-related tragedy destroys the warm, fuzzy glow of the first act. The Point, which is helpfully explained by Rizwan's mother early in the film, is that the only true difference between people is whether they are good people or bad people - not whether they are Muslims or Hindus, Iraqis or Americans. Rizwan later repeats this phrase in the charming courtship of the first act when, introducing himself as a door-to-door soap salesman, he also appends, "I am a good person and I do good work." Rizwan's moral certitude is shaken by the second act, when he is suddenly profiled as a villain by strangers and loved ones alike, and his assurances of his own moral goodness begin to take on a more desperate air: "My name is Khan... and I am not a terrorist!" This becomes his mantra and, following the shake-up and break-up of his San Francisco shelter, he embarks on a cross-country trek to tell the President (and, in a way, the State), that he is, and has always been, a good person who does good things. Along the way, he has a variety of adventures which, as Don King would say, can happen only in America! Or post-9/11 America, that is. In particular, there are references to Hurricane Katrina (and the government's failure to manage the disaster) as well as Guantanamo. These are touchy subjects, but they are handled with a simple earnest "Humanity is good! Rizwan is good!" vibe, so we fly safe through.

Much of the movie's charm comes from the simplicity of its storytelling, its optimistic (secular-ish) humanism, and its depiction of sparkly joy. It is shamelessly manipulative, like a Disney film. But its moral message is also just as child-like and shiny as a Disney film's. People are good! Prejudice is bad! We laughed and cried throughout the film, and one of its most poignant moments was the montage of Happy Family Moments, where the Hindu Mandira does morning pooja while her husband does the salaat.

We've never considered SRK a particularly skilfull actor from a technical standpoint, but we've always admired his immense charisma as a performer. In My Name is Khan, SRK flexes a bit more acting muscle and generally does justice to his character's Asperger's syndrome. Or, at least, does justice to previous cinematic portrayals of autism. The best we can say is that he is no worse than Dustin Hoffman or our beloved Anil Kapoor (and, no, we will never stop finding ways to link to that song) - and that is, well, saying something. His chemistry with Kajol is just the same as it ever was - they seem like old friends reunited, entirely comfortable and at ease in their on-screen banter. Their courtship is the film's sugary icing. Unfortunately, Kajol's role is halved after intermission, and her character starts exhibiting schizophrenic changes in personality. Kajol is a strong enough actress to make this weak characterization not seem totally rubbish (even though it does push the envelope of the absurd). Other unexpected faces do well in their parts - Vinay Pathak as a silly motel owner was great.

Thematically, the movie is a child's plea for peace. It doesn't acknowledge the ambiguity of real life, the politicization of fear, instead leaving everything blunt and sharply defined. This is a world where grumpy tram-goers will heckle a man as a "freak!" until they are morally chided, when they will shuffle away shame-faced. Does this really happen? Anywhere?! But that's OK, The Lion King is also pretty straightforward - and it's magnificent! My Name is Khan is not magnificent, but it is awfully nice. Like candy!

Love Aaj Kal (2009)

Some stories are just well-told.

Time out: The PPCC is all about philosophy of aesthetics, and we appreciate things like sharp narrative structure. In Love Aaj Kal, we were in for an unexpected treat: exciting, razor-tight, efficient pacing. Vah!

That may not sound like much, but it was exciting for us. Hindi films tend to be pretty Baroque in their narrative: they spend a lot of time lingering on emotional climaxes, building our interest in characters slowly and in great detail. Just remember the days of Manmohan Desai, where we would follow the Amitabh and Shashi brothers from the sidewalk to the front room, into the kitchen, upstairs, to the bathroom, and all that? There was a reason these movies were long.

They were also conventional in their chronology: the scenes were ordered according to the straightforward idea that what happened in Scene B was maybe a few minutes, or maximum a few days, after what happened in Scene A. If a larger jump in time was required, we would experience the required Flashback/Flashforward fuzzy camera + song.


This scene felt very Four Weddings and a Funeral, for some reason.

So what was very, very refreshing about Love Aaj Kal (Love Today Yesterday) was its use of a more post-modern style of storytelling. The plot spans two different generations, with the modern day love story taking place over several years. And yet - partly (we think) in order to maintain the intimacy of the emotional experience - director Imtiaz Ali abandons the David Lean epic effect in favor of a series of short vignette-style scenes. In this way, the characters and their romance is painted in broad brushstrokes; things are intimated and suggested more than explored in any great detail. And yet, paradoxically, as we abandon the mundane details of their lives in favor of a series of speedy snapshots, it becomes more realistic and more engaging! It's a bit like a Michael Ondaatje novel - most scenes don't last more than a minute or two, and they jump forward months and even years. Yet we never lose touch with the main thread.


Saif looking very good as a Sardarji.

That thread is the slow realization that Jai (a slightly plastic-looking Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (an unexpectedly wonderful Deepika Padukone) really do love each other in the old fashioned, soulmate way. A pair of light-hearted, cosmopolitan career people, Jai and Meera meet in a bar, date, enjoy each other's company and, when Meera's job takes her from London to Delhi, amicably part ways. Neither seems particularly devastated by their parting, there are no proclamations of eternal love. In fact, the two are pretty convinced that such love doesn't exist!

"Those 'made in heaven', 'can't live without you' soulmate types. They only exist in stories," Jai says confidently (and later in the film, desperately). "We're just regular people."

Their eventual understanding, over years and distance and obstacles, that they were, and are, in Love with a capital L, is a pleasure to watch. And it's partly helped along by a wonderful (CAN HE BE ANYTHING LESS THAN WONDERFUL THESE DAYS? THE ANSWER IS NO) Rishi Kapoor, who plays a sympathetic Sikh London coffee shop owner. As Kapoor relates his ultra-romantic, traditional love story from yore, we cut rapidly back and forth between the 1970s Delhi of the young Kapoor (played by Saif Ali Khan) and Harleen (Giselle Monteiro) - with its cinematic train departures, disapproving fathers and midnight escapes - and the stubbornly cynical text messages of post-modern Jai and Meera. The moral of the story: stop trying to deny your old fashioned heart goo, Generation Y!

We have very soft spots for jump cuts, drastic cross cuts (as between Sardar Saif and 2009 Saif) and old Rishi Kapoor, and we are also - at heart - old fashioned romantics, so we really enjoyed this film. Saif Ali Khan is dependably charismatic, and, since the film is mostly from his perspective, he does a fine job taking us through the highs and lows of Jai's awakening. He also impresses as the passionate young Punjabi in the old timeline. Deepika Padukone was surprisingly great - we say "surprisingly" because her roles in Om Shanti Om and Chandni Chowk to China were mostly throwaway stand-and-pose affairs. Or maybe she's maturing as an actress? Either way, she was just great. Rishi Kapoor... well, need we say more? What happened to this guy after 2000? He seems to have reinvented himself as, like, the best Papa Bear ever! The songs were fine, though - having heard them approximately ten billion times in the supermarket, gym, malls and autorickshaws - we were a little saturated. Special mention goes to the remix of the evergreen personal favorite Mera Mann Dole.

All the Best: Fun Begins (2009)

Yet another Hindi comedy where the big joke is pretending Woman X is not actually Man X's, she's actually Man Y's?

Intermission walk-out. Don't waste your time.

Wake Up Sid (2009)

Another fun, slightly progressive mainstream fluff film from the Karan Johar people, Wake Up Sid was a lot better than the PPCC expected. The film follows the adventures of the slacker with a Peter Pan complex, Siddarth (a very good Ranbir Kapoor), who slowly - at times painfully - grows out of his video game wastrel ways to become a man with a plan. Dare we say, he becomes enlightened?! This growing up thing is seriously aided by the women in his life - in particular, his roommate, confidante and eventual love, Aisha (Konkona Sen Sharma). This film - which is so perfectly presented, plastic and shiny and be-bop trendy - is hence mildly radical: independent, smart women helping men-children grow up to do the laundry and clean the dishes! older woman and younger man living together in the big city, gasp! And so forth. We appreciated it. It's not a Great film, but it is a very well-made film with a nice heart.

But let's start with introductions. Sid's college exams are finished, and he and his friends have a night on the town, charged by freedom and funded by Dad's (an excellent Anupam Kher) credit card. Sid is, in effect, an innocently immature wastrel. He plays video games. He is forever dressed in a t-shirt and jeans (including Star Trek and Star Wars silk screens!). He stuffs himself with chocolates, beer and pizza. He is selfish, at times even petty. He's impatient with the house's servant, he yells back at his parents.

One day at a party, he and we meet Aisha. She is seven years older than Sid, freshly arrived from Calcutta to start her new life in Mumbai. Aisha is classy and go-get-'em, she reads Jhumpa Lahiri and likes the smell of books (us too!), and while she admits being "very scared" at the prospect of being alone in the big city, she's also willing to face the challenge. You go, girl! Anyway, Sid is lightly smitten, but it's mostly puppy love, and they become fast friends. The friendship cake is topped with some "I'll help you move into you fab new bachelorette pad!" icing, which then turns into a Friends-like sleepover after Sid - following a fight with the fam over his exam failure - runs away from home at intermission.

And indeed it's the post-intermission stuff which is the most rewarding, as we finally watch Sid bloom under the care of Aisha. What's even more interesting is that - apart from stern, loving Dad - there's narry a male role model in sight. Instead, this film is all about getting in charge of things and maturing, and maturity is equated almost exclusively with women. There's an interesting sequence in which a self-pitying, out of work Sid is scolded by a number of different women, eventually culminating in one of them taking pity on him and teaching him how to fry an egg. (Hey, baby steps.)

That said, for however unimportant it is to Sid's enlightenment, the Dad role is pitch perfect in this film - Amrita's already mentioned how unbelievably excellent and oddly moving Anupam Kher's performance is and, maybe because we were prepped for it, maybe because this whole film cut a little too close to the bone, but the PPCC basically cried every single time Anupam Kher said anything. We tell you - this man can be SO GOOD when the role requires it. Is this the same guy who ruined Beta with his shrieking slapstick? The same shrill buffoon from Lamhe? Unbelievably, yes. It's also the same Mr. Kher who wowed us from 1942: A Love Story, and it's much the same vibe: the loving, wounded, disappointed father figure.

Actually, the performances in this film were all pretty great: this is the first Ranbir Kapoor film we see and he was a very good, if not particularly memorable, performer. Konkona Sen Sharma is well-known as a Good Actress - what with her work in all the independent stuff - and indeed, whenever she's in something mainstream, you know it's going to a bit smarter than usual. The supporting cast was dependable and generally lovable. The music was mostly disappointingly dull (no dance numbers!), though the romantic qawwali-esque Iktara was pretty glorious.

If you liked Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Dostana, or any of that new breed of over-perfect, open-minded fuzzy, urban and young stuff, this is another very likable addition.



...and a happy Diwali from the PPCC!

Do Knot Disturb (2009)

David Dhawan's Do Knot Disturb, a remake of the French film La doublure, is much as you would expect: a low-brow comedy filled with the usual stereotypes of the adulterous husband, the saucy temptress, and an assortment of goofy, lusty supporting characters making pratfalls while they chase after supermodels. It reminded us, actually, very strongly of something Italian actor/director Cristian De Sica would have made - think Merry Christmas, in particular - and indeed Govinda seemed to be channeling De Sica with his smarmy, middle-aged bumbling infidelities. Maybe because of this familiar vibe, or maybe because our expectations were rock bottom, or maybe because Ranvir Shorey has a small role, or maybe because one of the songs was quite catchy, we actually found ourselves mildly enjoying this film!


Govinda made good use of his cheesy smile, and Sushmita Sen of her "don't waste my time" vibe.

The story opens with smarmy, middle-aged Raj (Govinda), who is harried both by the demands of his gorgeous wife (Sushmita Sen) and the demands of his gorgeous lover, Dolly (Lara Dutta). When Raj is inadvertently photographed with Dolly one day, he concocts an elaborate story that the third person in the photo - a clumsy waiter (Ritesh Deshmukh) - is actually Dolly's boyfriend. In order to give credence to the story, he hires the waiter to play the part. The waiter - who is Dolly's biggest fan (Dolly has a job?) - is only too happy to oblige. Yet Mrs. Raj suspects anyway, and so sends her devoted friend (Ranvir Shorey) as detective to investigate the waiter-Dolly pair. Meanwhile, an increasingly jealous Raj also sends his own detective to make sure things don't go too far. Pretty lame jokes ensue.


The photo in question.


Goodness - compare Govinda in this pic to De Sica in the third pic on the Merry Christmas review. They went to the same school of acting!

Much like De Sica's Merry Christmas, this story is funny in its moments of zany, absurdist comedy (De Sica's tongue piercing sequence, Govinda's suddenly shrill falsetto), but is pretty dull in its attempts at more racy humor. At least, how many double entendres can you make about plugs and outlets? TVs and DVD players? God, spare me. Thankfully, the bathroom humor didn't go too far - always a risk in movies like this. Instead, it played it safe - although this is a comedy about infidelity, it's actually quite tame (or, at least, juvenile) in its handling of sex and seduction. The one rare moment when it all fell together and actually worked as a sort of joyous celebration of love-making was in the very catchy song, Zulfaen Khol Khal Ke, sung between Govinda and Lara Dutta in their Presidential Suite (of adultery! and sitars!). The fun and frollic of these two - both actors who we're quite fond of - was just charming! And gosh, Govinda's dance moves!

Which segues nicely to the performances and other stuff. As we said, we're actually quite fond of the entire cast here - Govinda, Lara Dutta, Sushmita Sen and Ranvir Shorey are always fun to watch. Rajpal Yadav was, as expected, way over-the-top and played very hammily to the "front bench". The songs ranged from fairly "meh" to peppy enough that we were ready to dance out of our seats (the previously mentioned Zulfaen Khol Khal Ke, and the bhangra New Year's number). David Dhawan's direction made fab use of energetic cross-cuts - this actually kept things moving quite nicely when the plot and forced humor threatened to drag everything down. Overall, a C effort - not terrible, but nothing to go out of your way for.

Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009)

Dil Bole Hadippa! (The Heart Says Hadippa!) is your pretty standard quirky masala lite post-2000 fare - think Diet Aaja Nachle with a sprinkling of Chak De! India. It covers two increasingly popular topics in mainstream Hindi films - the sports film and the girl power film (as well as one ever-popular topic: the Punjab) - and does it using the ever-charming Rani Mukherjee in the gender-bending role of Veera Kaur and her alternate ego, Veer Pratap Singh (popular name...).

"Charming" is a good word to use for the film overall - from its bright, bubbly beginning, to its satisfyingly large bhangra dance numbers (a must, in a film so soaking in Punjabi-ness). Unfortunately, it loses considerable steam after intermission, to the point that the climactic cricket match and lover's spat feels boring and forced. Oh, just get on with it, we were thinking. Thankfully, the film's heart is in the right place: with cheerful vibes of Indian-Pakistani unity (though India, of course, must win the cricket match) and a positive girl power message.


The best song, purely in terms of volume, color (man in a pink shirt, alert! yay) and bhangra-y goodness.


Time to bring Shahid back to his roots, man.

Optimistic and energetic Veera Kaur (Rani Mukherjee) is a self-declared "world-class batsman, right- and left-handed", and, when not helping out her local Punjabi theatre company, she busies herself with kicking ass on the pitch. One day, local cricket coach (Anupam Kher) and his best buddy from across the border (a very unexpectedly fly-looking Dilip Tahil - gosh, he's aging well!) have their annual India-Pakistan cricket match. With much sadness and woe, India loses. Twelve (?!) years on, and that same coach calls his cricket star son, Rohan (Shahid Kapoor), back from London - and, using some of that old-fashioned Hindi parent emotional arm-twisting - guilt-trips Rohan into staying on in the Punjab to help his dad's team beat Pakistan in the re-match. Veera, looking identical even after twelve years!, tries out for the team but is cast away due to the fact that she has a uterus. Whatever. Dejected, she mopes back to the theatre company... where she gets roped into cross-dressing as a jolly Sardar in the show's next big bhangra number. This, of course, gets Veera thinking, and no sooner than you can say "Sat Sri Akaal!" she's lost the eyeliner and donned a fake beard, reintroducing herself at the cricket tryouts as Veer Pratap Singh (uterus-free!).


Aww, Rani is a cute man!


Oh my! This is the first time we've seen girl-on-girl undertones in a Hindi film since 1959!

The rest of the story goes much as you expect, with some unexpectedly racy girl-on-girl and men's locker room gags. It even goes into a slightly Twelfth Night vibe, once Rohan falls for Veera and asks "Veer" for help, but things don't get too crazy.

Everything is sparkling and clean in this film, making it an altogether pleasant experience. Nothing is particularly mind-blowing - the songs are cute, the performances acceptable, the plot pretty straightforward - but we have no real complaints either. We saw this without subtitles, and so we floated above any double entendres given our limited Hindi, but we also don't think there was any great subtlety to the script. (At least, judging by everyone else's reactions.) Rani Mukherjee was her usual lovable self - we always enjoy seeing her, and she's one of the few Hindi actresses today who has that same spark and vivacity that the Greats of Old (Nargis... Neetu... Parveen...) had. Shahid Kapoor has been impressing us this year, given this and the grimy, quirky Kaminey, and we look forward to the Era of Shahid once the aging Khans finally allow themselves to be dethroned. Anupam Kher was subdued and cried a lot - which we always appreciate. And Dilip Tahil - where do you shop, my man? Because you were looking fly as heee-eeell.

Our advice: see this in the theatres, if you can. The big songs and big fun are worth it, and we expect that it'll lose quite a bit on the small screen.

Rishtey (2002)

Inoffensive and sweetly trashy, we didn't mean to watch all of Rishtey (Bonds)... but we ended up sticking with this film to the very end, cheering our beloved Anil Kapoor on as he boxed against an evil, towering white man named "Scorpio" (or, as Scorpio himself would prefer, "SCORPIOOOOOO! RAAAH!") in the film's finale. What can we say? Watching Anil Kapoor perform is like receiving a direct injection of opium to the heart. It's addictive, and we LOVE IT.

There were other addictive ingredients to Rishtey - plot twists reminiscent of the lovely Aa Gale Lag Jaa or the gloriously pulpy Calcutta Mail - as the film follows the beleaguered, working class Suraj (Anil Kapoor) in an extensive and violent custody battle against his evil, rich in-laws (led by Amrish Puri, of course). Suraj's brainless, estranged wife, Komal (Karisma Kapoor, lacking a lot of charisma indeed), gets entangled in her evil father's evil attempts to keep her apart from her loving husband and son because, as he sees it, it's better to be dead than poor. The film and we, the audience, naturally side with the poor all the way through - for example, Komal's family pad is a cheesy Art Deco mansion (yuck!), while Suraj and son live in maybe the coolest slum/chawl neighborhood ever (complete with Ferris wheel and a step well! in the middle of Mumbai!). Clearly interior decoration is a sign of moral righteousness, and tackiness is far from godliness! Throw in one PPCC audience stand-in, a plucky working class fish-seller, Vyjanti (Shilpa Shetty), who falls for Suraj big time and begins to see Anil's smiling face superimposed on random babies and butter-churners (insert your own comedy sequence here), and you have an enjoyable junk food film.


Pre-problems.

The best-made Custody Battle Hindi film, we reckon, is 1973's Aa Gale Lag Jaa (Come and Embrace Me), whose glorious gloriousness relies on the son and father's matching cutenesses. Master Tito and Shashi Kapoor were at the height of their adorableness in 1973 - and, heck, even the evil, rich father-in-law (Om Prakash) and easily-confused wife (Sharmila Tagore) were sympathetic.

Rishtey, unfortunately, is peopled by less charismatic types, all of whom are in their decline. Indeed, the entire film's quality rests on Anil Kapoor's shoulders. Thankfully, we love Anil Kapoor - BIG TIME - and we think his particular post-2000 brand of barrel-chested, mustachioed, father-as-superhero charisma is perfect for a role like this.

"Go, Anil, go!" we cheered, as he punched goons into orbit while bellowing No one touches my son!

"Awww!" we sighed, as he wept over the endless court cases and had various emotional breakdowns on the shoulder of his sympathetic Punjabi stereotype friend.


Mom?


Or Dad? Clearly Dad. Hello!

There was also an appealingly stupid side plot in which poor old Suraj, who used to compete in World Wrestling Federation-esque boxing matches (rings of fire! pits of spikes! artificial rain!), decides, damn it all, to perform one last time in order to get money to pay for the court fees. Or something. And all of this when, uh oh, Suraj's ancient injury from an old WWF match has left him with brain damage! "If you get hit right here again," the doctor informs Suraj, pointing to his forehead, "you may be paralyzed... or be left a vegetable... or DIE!" Of course, the evil father finds out about this and swiftly hires "SCORPIOOOOOOOOO! RAAAH!", a mercenary American WWF wrestler (not Mickey Rourke... alas), to punch Suraj repeatedly in the forehead.

Hmmm, a hardened ex-wrestler with a gooey center and Achilles-like weakness who, after familial estrangement, steps into the ring again for one final, possibly fatal fight? Clearly The Wrestler was a remake of Rishtey! We rest our case.

Music-wise, Suraj and Komal's love anthem, Har Taraf Tu Hi, was well-filmed and catchy - we've been singing, "Hai... hai-hai-hai-HAI chaahata ho itna tujhe!" all the way to the elevator and local Indian restaurant, where it's been playing on loop as well. And Anil's school-boy haircut in the song? The jerky posing? The columns?! The priceless.

And guess what sign we are? SCORPIOOOOOOO, RAAAH! Anil: plz make more boxing melodramas. Perhaps a remake of Crying Fist? We've already noted that Anil and Choi Min-Sik are the same person.

We love you, Anil Kapoor!!!

Delhi 6 (2009)

Tai: Do you think she's pretty?
Cher: No, she's a full-on Monet.
Tai: What's a monet?
Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess.
-Clueless (1995)

The sprawling, humanist Delhi 6 is a bit of a Monet. Sentimental and impressionistic, it's quite sweet when you step back from it. But, close up, it's a big old mess. The characters, while vivid, are rough sketches, and the tone swings wildly around - one minute, you're laughing, one minute, crying. Oh, the humanity!


Lovely aesthetics though: great poster! But see how busy it is, too?! American, Indian. Hindu, Muslim. Dove, no dove!

If you give up trying to follow a coherent narrative, or being able to predict the emotional cues, it's enjoyable - in particular, its earnest humanism is endearing. Director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra has gone to great lengths to show humanity's light and dark in equal measure. He uses blunt symbolism - the Ramleela festival runs like a leitmotif throughout the meandering narrative, and scenes of Ravana cackling in front of flames are used to punctuate moments of drama. As if that wasn't enough, Mehra also uses the 2001 New Delhi "monkey-man" scare as yet another symbolic parallel of man's "dark nature". Personally, we liked the monkey-man symbolism more - it's certainly the first time we've seen urban lore used in such an innovative, aesthetic way! (That said, some of those Ramleela scenes were pretty spectacular too.)

The film is crowded with characters, each stepping over the other in a bid to get your attention. At the center of it all is American-born NRI Roshan (Abhishek Bachchan), who has brought his ailing grandmother (Waheeda Rehman, how about that!) back to Delhi's Chandni Chowk for her remaining months. But then there's: the aging, broken-hearted, paan-chewing Uncle Ali (Rishi Kapoor), the corrupt and lazy policeman Inspector Ramvijay (Monsoon Wedding's Vijay Raaz, long time no see), the fire-breathing and feisty Dalit Jalebi (Divya Dutta), the warring brothers Jai Gopal (Black Friday's Pavan Malhotra) and Madan Gopal (Om Puri), Madan Gopal's Indian Idol-dreaming daughter Bittu (Sonam Kapoor, daughter of Anil) and...

PHEW. Deep breath.

...the sleazy money-lender (Prem Chopra), the "village idiot" Gobar (Atul Kulkarni), the Muslim paan-wallah with the sensitive cheekbones Mamdu (Deepak Dobriyal), the woeful aging spinster Rama (Aditi Rao), a bunch of super-cheeky kids, a false Hindu sage ("God will make everything okay, okay?!") and loads of other people.


Abhishek Bachchan was his usual Americanized self. Sonam Kapoor was gorgeous, but clearly inexperienced.

This film is about ALL of these people, so you can imagine: there's no space for a story! Everything interweaves, spirals, bumps into and wanders. We see quotidian joys, sorrows, fears. It is to director Mehra's credit that he truly captured the crowded, jostling busyness of one of the most notoriously crowded and busy country's most notoriously crowded and busy neighborhoods. It is also heart-warming to see the mundane, even decrepit aspects of the buildings and our inner selves painted in such loving, compassionate detail.


The fussy detailing of life in Chandni Chowk was great, and thanks for including all the humanity, Mr. Mehra! This was a refreshing change from the lonely, depopulated Chandni Chowk in Black & White, another film which used the neighborhood as a harmonious communalism-free, casteism-free, ism-ism-free microcosm of India.

However, this enormous canvas also works to Mehra's detriment: it's just too large. While a sense of humor is great, sometimes the bittersweet, humorous undertones undermined moments of serious drama. And the symbolism was also often bluntly vocalized: we get it, sir, we get it!

For example, there's a scene when the daydreaming Bittu laments her inability to break free from the confines of her conservative home: the arranged marriage, the predetermined traditionalist life. Already likened to a dove in the earlier song Masakali, the characters then directly vocalize the parallels: just like the dove, Masakali, had her wings tied by the loving, overprotective Madan Gopal, so too is Bittu tied by the loving, overprotective Madan Gopal. Sheesh. A less sledgehammer-like scene (though still pretty blunt) was when Madan Gopal arranges Bittu's marriage at the moneylender's: the men interlace their conversation with a discussion on selling cars, while a television blares the latest stock exchange announcements. There were some scarce moments when Mehra's touch was lighter - such as when the feuding Madan Gopal and Jai Gopal are likened, via only a few lyrics and tasteful cuts, to the feuding Ram and Lakshman, or when the aggressive female politician is likened to Durga. But alas, these moments are all too rare. We even get a West Side Story-style final monologue, complete with a "moral of the story". Oh, the humanity indeed!

In conclusion: impressionism is nice, but it's also nice in small doses. Next time - and our previews included the most excellent-looking trailer for Vishal Bharadwaj's Kameenay, starring a sleazified Shahid Kapoor - we'd like something a bit more humble in scope and clear-sighted in vision. As an occasional treat, this will do.

Billu (2009)

After all the glowing praise Billu (formerly known as Billu Barber) had been receiving from our trusty blog colleagues, Filmi Girl and Beth, we're a little disappointed to be coming to you as the Grumpy PPCC. Because here's the truth: we squirmed through Billu. We checked our watch. We waited for it to end.

The main problem, we reckon, is that Billu comes at the wrong time: during a veritable glut of films which tackle the exact same themes. Things like the mesmerizing, paper-thin world of our Bollywood dreams, the insanity of Shah Rukh Khan's fame, and the nobility of the common man have been tackled, with more subtlety and wit, in other films. For example, Om Shanti Om and Luck by Chance already addressed the mystique of Shah Rukh Khan and Hindi commercial films - the former via worshipful parody, the latter via a cynical satire. And the last properly masala film we watched - the early Anil Kapoor vehicle, Saaheb - told the same moral ("ordinariness is great!") in a more meaningful, touching way. In Billu, after the usual 2.5 hours, an ordinary nice guy was embarrassed and then, finally, acknowledged. The end.


Nice, simple Billu (Irrfan Khan) and his wife (Lara Dutta).


Nice, glamorous Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan) and his co-star (Deepika Padukone).

Based on the friendship between Krishna and the humble Sudama, the story transposes things to a modern-day setting: Krishna is now the Bollywood superstar and SRK parody, Sahir Khan (Shah Rukh Khan), while Sudama is the humble village barber, Billu (Irrfan Khan). Although Billu has a gorgeous wife (Lara Dutta) and two cheeky little kids, he's got nothing but tension: his barbershop is losing business to the place across the street, the town big man (Om Puri) hassles him, his amateur poet friend (Rajpal Yadav) won't stop reciting his half-baked poems to him, the electricity just got cut and the kids are going to be thrown out of school if the fees don't get paid.

Next thing he knows, Sahir Khan and his entourage small army of acolytes and screaming fans descend upon the town for a film shooting. Soon, the sleepy hamlet is whipped up into a frenzy of celebrity worship and news of a long-past friendship between Billu and Sahir increases the excitement to a fever pitch. Everyone wants Billu to introduce them to his glorious Sahirness, while Billu is reluctant: will Sahir even remember him?

The story is straightforward, with few surprises. For this reason, it felt protracted and thin to us, with overly blunt symbolism. We know how it's going to end - the tagline pretty much gives it away - and so it's only a question of going through the motions. No great philosophical insight is given into why Billu's ordinariness should be preferable to Sahir Khan's glamour: both Billu and Sahir are pretty much regular, decent guys. The film seems to be saying that common kindness goes a long way, longer than celebrity, and it shouldn't be overlooked. But then - Billu's not the saintly, mini-bodhisattva that was the title character of Saaheb, another film which glorified the mundane (to much greater effect). He's just... nice.

Filmi Girl made some very interesting notes about the nature of icons and fame, but this isn't the film first this year to show us the vulnerability of unmasked celebrity. Luck by Chance, which we prefer to Billu, addressed the same issues via the scenes where superstar Zafar Khan (another meta-performance, this time by Hrithik Roshan) laments his status as an "image" and via the small, humane details of his day-to-day reality (his scene mugging to the children from his car window).

Thin plot, thin themes and next, thin characterizations. Alas, everyone just seemed one-dimensional to us: we started yearning for the complexity of Rishi Kapoor's aging, vulnerable producer from Luck by Chance, Romy "VOLCANO of talent! (write that down!)" Rolly. The acting was everything expected from everyone involved. Irrfan Khan was dependably believable, though, if we really wanted to emphasize Billu's noble loser-ness, Ranvir Shorey would have been more fun - hello, Mohan the chaiwallah! Shah Rukh Khan was playing, yet again, a parody of himself and, alas, we only felt feeble sparks of the SRK magic during those gargantuan songs. Is the spell broken? (Nahiiiin!) Lara Dutta and Om Puri are two actors that we find ever-lovable, but Lara didn't have much to do and Om Puri was misused (poor Om).

And even director Priyadarshan's cinematography was often a direct copy from Virasat! I swear, that's the same village! And that shot of the long line of carts on the curved path with the mountains in the distance?! Hello, end of the Sun Mausa Sun Mausi song!

So after all this disappointment, can we find anything positive to say? Yes! The songs were pretty grand, and the self-indulgent spectacle was a welcome respite from all that monotonous trudging through the "does Billu know Sahir really really?" village dialogues. Also, interestingly (because of the Krishna-Sudana undertones), all the songs referenced God directly - while the most spectacular song's refrain was "mar jaani mar jaani" (which our subtitles translated as, "they can go to hell!").

Edited, after a chocolate: Okay, here's another good thing: while Priyadarshan may have recycled some shots and the setting, he did have a lot of fun in some scenes - especially during the Sahir Khan sequences. That rock concert was a hoot, and there's am impressive long take of Shah Rukh Khan struggling to contain his pain when a local amateur actor massacres his single line of dialogue. Long takes are always notable, and it was fun to see how Priyadarshan films SRK's reactions rather than the bumbling amateur actor: it gives SRK a chance to show off his underused (at least in films), slightly edgy and subtle sense of humor.

Ugly aur Pagli (2008)

Back when we saw Ugly aur Pagli (Ugly and Crazy) on a tiny, flickering television on a semi-deserted island, we had only one significant criticism: it tries too hard.


Wake up, Mallika, the review has started.

This is hardly damning, as surely it's better to try too hard than not try at all. And the worst thing Ugly aur Pagli does is proclaim its quirkiness loud and clear when, in many moments, a lighter touch would have been better. Rather than narrating the odd adventures of Kabir (Ranvir Shorey) and Kuhu (Mallika Sherwat) via a relentless voice-over, it would have been far more effective and fun to let the story speak for itself. Indeed, the best part of the film is the last half hour, when Kabir finally shuts up and lets us watch in peace.

But maybe our criticism is missing the point, as Ugly aur Pagli is a veritable celebration of the ignored, imperfect, weird couples out there in the world. The ones that aren't chocolate box fluff beings from the Planet Perfect. The ones with pimples and drinking problems. And it wants to PROCLAIM this quirkiness IN CAPS (including from a skyscraper's rooftop). Beginning with the very first frame, being different is celebrated: while a tinkling anti-filmi indie anthem plays, we see snapshots of quirky love in all its guises. A pair of transvestites. A lesbian couple. A dwarf and his average height girlfriend. It is, thanks to the music and gentle affection on display, oddly touching. And a good start to a story about a loser "ugly", Kabir (Ranvir Shorey), falling in love with his aggressive, binge-drinking "pagli" friend, Kuhu (Mallika Sherwat). When Kabir first meets Kuhu, she vomits all over herself. As they become friends, she slaps him repeatedly and challenges him to outrageous dares (such as wearing her stilettos across a busy Mumbai intersection). Kuhu is loud, combustible, feminist and angry. She writes action-packed screenplays about heroines saving their wimpish heroes from disaster and expresses her growing affection for Kabir by dragging him around by his shirt. The wimpish, bewildered Kabir spends most of the time scrambling to keep up with her wild mood swings and impulsive decisions. It's only when the two are separated that they, and we the audience, realize how meaningful their attachment was.


The dominatrix stuff was sometimes tiresome...


...but the action heroine fantasies were hilarious.

Much of the film's humor is tiresome and forced (though we did laugh very hard at Kabir attending swimming lessons, for some reason), and many have criticized that the movie's transfer from Seoul to Mumbai lost a lot of... soul (ba-dum-shhhh, thank you, thank you very much). Indeed, this movie is saved almost entirely by the performances of the two leads. Mallika Sherwat and Ranvir Shorey both work their particular brands of offbeat, unconventionally attractive performers perfectly. Both known for envelope-pushing work - they each made their debuts in racy films (Khwahish for her, Ek Chotisi Love Story for him) - they seem to be teasing this image as much as they're exploiting it. At least, the S&M vibes were strong (the DVD menu features whips and handcuffs!). Furthermore, they're both playing to their image of fiery, free-spirited pagli for her and sensitive loser for him. What can we say? We love these two just like that. And so the film - despite its flaws - works because of them.


The drinking buddy song! Featuring Punjabi rap artist Hard Kaur, which definitely upped the film's street cred. If you want to kick it old school, see Naina's excellent drinking buddy anthem, Jane Mujhe Tune. (No, we will never stop plugging that song.)

We also just appreciate quirkiness on a philosophical level. Yay quirky! Yay different! Because of that, and the heart-squishing finale, we put this film in the Decent pile. We'd like to see more of the same from Bollytown, just with a bit more polish next time.


Oh, you two.

Sirf (2008)

The excellent premise of Sirf - the idea that, as the Zutons say, everyone's got problems, everyone's got stress - is unfortunately quickly ruined by behavior so unrealistic we wondered if these people even CAME FROM THIS PLANET.

But, alas, what little fun we had reinterpreting Sirf as a sci-fi odyssey didn't compensate for the spork-inducing ridiculousness of this movie. This is a damn shame. The set-up is fantastic: welcome to big, bad Mumbai! And meet four couples, each facing their own believable problems and each comprising two vulnerable, imperfect individuals. First, there's the puppy love couple (Ankur Khanna and Nauheed Cyrusi), anxious to get married and set up their perfect home. Next, there's the working class couple (Ranvir Shorey and Sonali Kulkarni) with the seriously ill daughter, trying (and generally failing) to juggle hectic work schedules with quality home time. After them, the newlyweds (Parvin Dabas and Rituparna Sengupta) encountering city-versus-country cultural tensions (she copes about as well as cheese copes with vanilla ice cream). And finally, the wealthy, middle-aged couple (Manisha Koirala and Kay Kay Menon) who flirt with adultery, workaholism and suspicions.


Parvin Dabas, Manisha Koirala and Rituparna Sengupta.


The cute Ankur Khanna.

Basically, the plot's originality and initial appeal (for us) was in the first two couples: the experience of the young couple who just gets excited shopping at Ikea together is rarely seen in film, and it was engaging and cute. The husband-wife dynamic between the working class couple was also well-done and believable. Once we got into the two more cliché couples - the culture clash couple and the middle-aged bored couple - things took a telenovela turn, complete with melodramatic lines such as: "He was out eating paani puri with that witch!" Ay Dios mio! Es todo muy ridicolo.

The similarities between this and other "humanity quilt" films is notable. As with the other films in this genre, we follow a large number of seemingly only tangentially-related couples through their personal turmoils which become more and more entangled. If you'll allow us to be glib, Sirf's role in this long, illustrious line of quilts can be summarized as follows:

• Love, Actually (2003): love is all around!
  
• Salaam-e-ishq (2007): pyaar everywhere hai!
  
• Life... in a Metro (2007): but this is not necessarily a good thing because love hurts...
  
• Sirf (2008): ...and don't bother envying that couple over there, since their relationship is probably crappier than yours.

An interesting idea! Indeed, the four stories are linked by one character admiring the next couple and literally thinking, "God, I wish I was like them..." We then get to follow that envied character to their own very imperfect home life. It seems everyone's pretty far from domestic Elysium!


Is Kay Kay Menon crying because he lost his mobile?


Ranvir Shorey trying - TRYING - to make sense of his climactic scene.

Some minor spoilers...

Yet what ruins this film is the outrageous behaviors and a script which strains credulity. For example, when the film wants to show us the culture shock the naive country wife gets when she attends her new husband's birthday party, it does this by having the husband's birthday cake shaped like a pair of breasts. All the "city people" laugh and jest about this but the PPCC couldn't help but think: Who ARE these people!? Does anyone actually buy boob cakes? Even jokingly? What is he turning, twelve?! Or what about the parents who talk with their doctor about their eight-year-old daughter's chances of surviving a risky surgery... in front of the daughter. (?!!) And that same doctor who, when tragedy strikes, goes, "Well, I told you so!" WTF?!

And then - icing on the boob alien people cake - just listen to this:

• Wife suspects husband of cheating and is generally tired of husband's workaholic nature.
  
• Husband is, when present, attentive, sensitive and upbeat.
  
• One day, during a work meeting, husband is told that wife is pregnant. He flips out with joy! He buys a million toys! When wife comes home, husband has buried himself in a pile of stuffed animals and declares that, paraphrasing, "This half of the room is for me junior, that side of the room is for you junior."
  
• Wife declares she has had an abortion.
  
• A distraught husband expresses concern: "Were there complications?! Are you okay?!"
  
• No, wife says. No complications. She just didn't want to bring a being in the world with such an absent, workaholic father.

What?

What?!!

It's a good thing the PPCC was sitting down for that one, otherwise we would have had a Ranvir Shorey-esque collapse of pure SHOCK.

Which segues nicely into the performances, which were uniformly strong. At least, all these talented actors - Manisha, Kay Kay, Ranvir - were clearly trying very hard with the material they had. Kay Kay Menon's elation and despair in the scene we described above was well-done, as were moments when we saw Manisha's weary hurt at being ignored. We look forward to seeing more from the young 'uns, Ankur Khanna and Nauheed Cyrusi. If we had been more invested in Ranvir's storyline, we probably would have cried in the end, rather than just admiring his technical ability in a cold, hard shell-of-a-PPCC way. The most uneven couple were Parvin Dabas and Rituparna Sengupta. Their story, which began earnestly, slowly devolved into straight dramedy TV serial-style acting: Rituparna Sengupta seemed to morph into someone fresh off the saas-bahu drama set, while Parvin Dabas became the bumbling, put-upon husband. ¿Por qué, filmmaker, por quééééééé? (Side note but Parvin Dabas, who we last saw in Monsoon Wedding, was a revelation: that man was like a cross between Abhishek Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor. Beth, get thee to his movies! ¡Andalé!)

Alas, we can't really recommend this one. The best part about this film was the complementary can of ice-cold Coca Cola that the DVDwallah gave us when we cleared his Ranvir Shorey stock.

Edited a few hours later, after baking a chocolate cake: Forgot something! A pleasant surprise in this film was the occasional use of Western classical which featured, in particular, our two favorites: Philip Glass (!!!) and pieces from Yann Tiersen's soundtrack for Amélie (including possibly J'Y Suis Jamias Alle or Pas Si Simple - anyway, one of the delightful accordion-heavy ones edited like two minutes later: NO! It was definitely Les Jours Tristes... okay, done now, for real). What a weird surprise! We've seen Western classical used in Hindi films before - Parinda and 1942: A Love Story - but never has it been with such TASTE. Yay Philip Glass! Yay Yann Tiersen!

Aaja Nachle (2007)

Oh, Madhuri.

Ooooh, Madhuri.

We love you, Madhuri.

We love you so, so much.


MAAAAADHURREEEEEEE!!! MADZ!

Madhuri is DA BEST, DA BOMB, DAAAAA BEARS. She is our shining heroine, the one the PPCC aspires to be like. We want to glow like Madhuri! Dance like Madhuri! Kick ass like Madhuri!

In Aaja Nachle (Come dance), Madhuri's wonderful comeback vehicle, the whole film is about - as Beth would say - finding your inner Madhuri. And while Carla and Beth rightly note that Aaja Nachle skirts away from the controversial issues it brings up (and Roswitha and Amrita note that it's controversial anyway), it is nonetheless (or perhaps because of this) a light, fluffy and intoxicatingly free Madhuri-style entertainer. Back in November, when we started watching Anil Kapoor movies like it was going out of style, we quickly came up against the bombest pair of the 90s: Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit. And while we've already talked about how much we love these two, and how much we love Anil, we've never really talked about what makes Madhuri so great. So we'll do that here: if every performer has a brand, then her brand is freedom. Often playing strong women who get things done, she was glamorous yet approachable, confident, daring and fun. In a type of cinema whose female roles were often populated by wet lettuces, self-sacrificing martyrs and idiots, Madhuri brought back the strong woman. Suddenly heroines were cool again! Gosh, we hadn't identified with anyone like that since the days of Nargis - another strong, beautiful, fun heroine.

Aaja Nachle is based firmly on the Madhuri brand: the mythos of her dancing, her gutsiness, her sparkle, even her flight to America. With obvious meta implications (Madhuri married an American NRI and abandoned her filmi career in the early 2000s, much to the woe of Anil Kapoor), the story tells of Madhuri's rapprochement with small town, India. It also tackles the obvious tension which any successful heroine faces: that old school, conservative notion that purity and performance are incompatible, that marriage and a successful acting career cannot coexist. It uses the ever-lovable trope of bringing a ragtag ensemble together to achieve unexpected greatness, and it aims (but doesn't always shoot) at issues like NRI-versus-Indian, future-versus-past, global-versus-local, Westernized-versus-traditional and man-versus-woman. Sure, it leaves a lot of these significant issues unexplored or just blandly acknowledged, but, well, how - HOW!? - can you expect the PPCC NOT to love a film stuffed full with incredibly hot guys, incredibly fun dancing, an incredibly pretty setting, all led by an incredibly strong, lovable heroine?! It was too much! Aaja Nachle captured our dil big time - we loved it!

The story: Back in the day, Dia (Madhuri Dixit!) was the star of her local dance company. Independent and charismatic, one day she fell in love with a handsome Westerner (Felix D'Alviella) and - defying small town Indian conventions - eloped with him to America. There, they divorced and she became the single mother of their daughter. After eleven years of living in Manhattan and managing her dance studio there, she receives word that her beloved childhood dance instructor is terminally ill. She makes a hasty return to India only to find that he has passed away. Once back in town, however, she learns that her legacy shamed her family and her dance company into destitution. Now the dance stage is threatened to be bulldozed to make way for a new mall and it's up to Dia to save it! Yet the smarmy (and unexpectedly super-hot) local MP, Raja Uday Singh (Akshaye Khanna), gives her an ultimatum: she has to successfully mount a performance using only local amateurs in TWO MONTHS and everyone in the town must LOVE IT in order for the Anjana stage to be saved. OMG can Madhuri do it?!!?!!

The PPCC's reaction here was approximately: "Squeeeee!! Goooo, Madhureeeeee!"


Huzzah!

Dia quickly attacks her problem head-on: she decides to stage the classic Laila-Majnu and, after auditions yield little promise, she just starts hand-picking town residents to be her cast. In the role of Majnu, she picks the monosyllabic goon, Imran (Kunal Kapoor, who is apparently like ten feet tall). Laila's role is quickly taken by Anokhi (Konkona Sen Sharma), the goofy, brash tomboy who harbors an intense secret crush on Imran. Meanwhile, Dia's spurned ex-fiancee, Mohan the chaiwallah (Ranvir Shorey), agrees to help and ends up playing the evil king. The cast begins to fill out - a goon leader (Akhilendra Mishra) here, a clumsy husband (Vinay Pathak) there - and eventually even 1980s child actor Jugal Hansraj and his cute Pinocchio nose show up as the straight-laced stockbroker who ends up playing Laila's brother. He even gives odds of success throughout the film ("Twenty percent today, guys") - how adorably nerdy! This film is clearly at 110% awesome now.


Awww, Konkona.

Now it's just a matter of tackling the various obstacles - a surly crowd, conservative gender norms, and a smoking hot evil businessman, Farooque (Irrfan Khan) - for Dia to mount the most gloriously glorious spectacle of Laila-Majnu you done ever saw. As the PPCC's viewing companions commented, "That was better than the film!" It was like the perfect icing to a highly satisfying cake - it was that extra 10% of fun.

We weren't wearing our thinking cap during this, nor did we focus too hard on the issues or the logic or anything. But that wasn't the film's aim: it wanted to be mainstream, and therefore non-provocative, but also liberated, so, much like Dostana, it made some compromises. Anyway, its set-up was open-minded enough: NRI Dia ends up showing that you can be divorced, Westernized, happy and in tune with your Hindustani dil! In a nice ironic twist, it's also NRI Dia who cares about the town's traditional dance stage, and it's NRI Dia who saves the town from the onslaught of a Westernized shopping mall.

There was also a nice theme of moving outside of your comfort zone and falling in love (charmingly captured in the song, Ishq Hua - "Love Happened"). For example, Imran is a brutish, macho goonda who is embarrassed by the idea of playing the classic softie, Majnu. Meanwhile, Anokhi is clumsy and blunt in expressing her feelings and she doesn't do herself any favors either: wiping her nose on her hands, picking fights in the dirt and so on. Neither of them make particularly good potential mates for each other, and both are initially resistant to the idea that they should change. Yet thanks to Dia's advice, the two meet in the middle and fall in love: Anokhi, well, grooming a bit and learning how to attract his interest (via the tried-and-tested "hard to get"/"watch out or these boots are gonna walk all over you" routine), Imran embracing his inner theater geek and allowing himself to appear vulnerable and sensitive (and thus EVEN MORE HOT). Other examples of this theme are Dia, of course, and her initial romance with the videshi, and the straight-laced, middle-aged Mr. Chojar (Vinay Pathak) joining the theater troupe in a roundabout way to woo his wife and inject some pizazz into their marriage.


The cutest Laila and Majnu.

When these people weren't all falling in love with each other, the PPCC was falling in love with all the other fine studs in the house. We will now just list them and their most sizzling qualities because we really are only thirteen years old in spirit.

1. Mohan the grieving, sensitive chaiwallah. Oh, don't cry, Ranvir! We'll light up your neon dil! Ranvir Shorey has that hurt-puppy look throughout the film, and apart from eliciting a group "awwww!" for the moment he's left at the altar to cry quietly in front a giant flashing neon heart sign, he won our hearts completely with his epic "wounded, pining & sensitive" routine (the name of our new band, incidentally). He defends Madhuri! He helps Madhuri! He still loves Madhuri! Even though she humiliated him in front of the wedding guests! He gives sage, world-weary love advice to Imran! All he does in the evenings is drink and cry about Madhuri! All he wants in the world is to open a hotel and live with Madhuri in "our little world" and serve chai! ACK, MY DIL JUST EXPLODED. WE'LL LIVE IN YOUR LITTLE WORLD, MOHAN! 2. Uday Singh the post-modern, globalized raja. Harr harr harrr. Another round of golf? What should have been a straightforward villain role is instead, via Akshaye Khanna's irresistible little dimples, cute Abercrombie & Fitch prep style and cheeky offers of gourmet pizza, something much more morally ambiguous and quite lovable! Uday's not out to get Madhuri. He's not angry or morally indignant or insane. He's just like, "Dude, I just want what's best for the town. What do I care?" Mall, theater, meh. A slice of sexy with pepperoni on top? WHY THANK YOU. 3. Farooque the evil, dashing businessman. OMG IRRFAN'S HOTNESS KILLED US DEAD. Okay, so this guy is just plain evil but never have we seen Irrfan Khan looking quite so delectable too! What? Okay, we've gone a bit schoolgirl, but, whatever, it's an objectification party in this review and EVERYONE'S INVITED! Just check Irrfan out in that elegant black sherwani, as he looms his tallness over the other party guests and gently suggests that Madhuri is really a spawn of the Great Satan in disguise. Please don't make Irrfan play any more villains, movie producer, we just find him far too attractive when he does! 4. Sanjeev the dorky stockbroker. Cute in 1983. Cute in 2007. Go, Jugal! What a most pleasant surprise! We've watched Jugal Hansraj grow from adorable child actor to awkward child actor to adorable adult actor to this. He's still got those to-die-for hazel eyes and that cute nose and now, even better, a little Raj Kapoor pencil mustache and a fashion sense that just SCREAMS "seduce me, I'm a socially awkward nerd". Man, we'll buy your shares any day of the week, Jugal! 100% on fire! SELL SELL SELL!

And that is all. Watch this movie! Whoo!

P.S. Can a nice reader tell the PPCC what happens in the very end? Our last five minutes were missing! Spoilers bedamned, just tell us that Mohan and Dia finally get together.

Reality implosion #3: Aneel Kaporre takes on Amreeka!

The contents of our "anil kapoor" Google alert are getting more and more surreal with each passing day.

What? Don't judge us if we have a Google alert on Mr. India. We were serious when we said we're joining his fanclub. It came with the membership.

Anyway: "A-neel Kapore" is living it up big time in Hollywood, conspicuously consuming and pimping his fly wheels, getting a full bio on CNN, dancing with that lady on the Today Show, bear-hugging Regis, having his facial hair scrutinized and his stache declared a "Yes!" from Esquire Magazine, being called the "bees knees" by New York Magazine, and achieving a weird sort of "the alt.hipsters love you in a cultish ironic way!" status on TMZ.

This is all very strange.

Let's hope Misterrr Aneel "Millin-aaaiihhrrr" Kapore can keep surfin' these waters even after the tidal wave of Slumdog settles. We don't want this to be a Benigni repeat, where Hollywood gets briefly enamored of a quirky, delightful "foreigner" and then everything fizzles out into nothing.

In the meantime: a photo!


You all know what we think of His Stacheliness.

Saaheb (1985)

Ahh, the unique, hidden grandeur of mediocrity! The glories of being pedestrian!

If Pixar's The Incredibles showed that not everyone can or should be considered super, then Saaheb shows that not everyone has to be super to be special, needed, happy or loved. It is a veritable celebration of the middle child - the kid that's neither the hero nor the underdog, the one who isn't rebellious, spectacular or often even noticed. In a clever symbolism, the titular protagonist, Saaheb, has only one talent: goalkeeping. Like the goalkeeper, he occupies an unglamorous but critical and unique role. "No one notices whether I'm here or not!" Saaheb says. And yet, like the goalkeeper everyone forgets about or even disparages ("He can't even score a goal!" his father grumbles. "All he does is stand around!"), it's Saaheb who is the family's protector and, in the end, savior. In fact, so touching is this theme of hidden joy and uncelebrated sacrifice that, even as the audio skipped and the cameraman forgot to focus, the PPCC ended up a blubbering pile of soggy, used tissues.


Don't cry, middle child, you're a star!

In a drab, crowded working class house, a hypertensive widower (Utpal Dutt) lives with his three married sons, their wives, his unmarried son - Saaheb! (Anil Kapoor) - and his unmarried daughter, Bulti (Nandita Thakur). Our secret hero, Saaheb, is the typical child lost in the middle: he is the peacemaker and, often, the errand boy for everyone else in the house. His best friends in the family are the young Bulti, with whom he scraps and teases, and his protective older sister-in-law, Sujata (Rakhee). Both Saaheb and Bulti are constantly made by the rest of the family to feel that they're worthless weights: Saaheb because he has failed college (again!) and is jobless and prospectless, Bulti because she is still unmarried. A suitable husband is eventually found for Bulti, but the family despairs: they can't afford the wedding! While their father grieves over leaving his children with nothing and having to sell the house to pay for Bulti's wedding, the older children connive and plan on what they'll do with their share. The only ones who seem to care about keeping the house intact are Saaheb and Bulti. And in the end, it's goofy, forgotten Saaheb who saves the team.


The family.

Grafted over this story is the obligatory romance which, while a little extraneous, is still quite charming: Saaheb's neighbor is the outgoing, tomboyish Natasha (Amrita Singh) who initiates the courtship by brazenly calling over from her balcony: "Hey! Want to be friends?" Saaheb resists for about half a song, and then they frolic around for yet more songs - sometimes on the pavement, sometimes in their fantasy future.


An Anil Kapoor character dominated by a strong woman yet again.

Like Virasat, this is another Anil Kapoor movie that intelligently tackles dharma. Except here the dharmic duty - the submission of the individual to the larger community - is just portrayed as straightforward, poignant sacrifice. So none of those hairy moral consequences and ambiguities - thank goodness for our brain! - but with the same delicate, humanistic touch - thank goodness for our heart!

There was also an interesting Buddhist shout-out in the end. This gives the whole dharma issue a fresh, new spin, as we're not talking about being a cog in the almighty caste system à la Hinduism, instead we're talking about being a drop in the large, amorphous, interdependent ocean à la Buddhism.

OOH! Time out for a completely unrelated Buddhist joke!
What does the Zen Buddhist ask the hot dog man? "Make me one with everything."

Wait, wait - we've got another one!
How many Buddhists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to change it, and one not to change it.

Harr harrr harrrrr...

Anyway.

Where were we?

Oh yes - so Saaheb is directly likened to Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. While this is a bit of a stretch - Saaheb's a great guy and clearly in tune with the Buddhist philosophy of interdependent existence and humble compassion, but uh... - it's still a really novel parallel. Good ol' Siddartha just doesn't come up in movies that often! And maybe it's not such a stretch: compared to his selfish brothers, Saaheb's definitely further along the path to Enlightenment, that's for sure.

The other great thing about Saaheb, as we mentioned earlier, is this glorification of the ordinary. Generally, films either deal directly with the realization of your wildest dreams, or deal with the painful fall-out of realizing that your wildest dreams are not so great or just plain unattainable. Saaheb and his beloved Natasha instead dream small: and yet even these humble aspirations (working as flight attendants or train ticket collectors) are transformed into something Elysian and grand and perfect, just by their sheer joy. In the end, we cried a lot more than Saaheb did for his new future because we just couldn't accept it with the same easy-going malleability as him!


This song became our favorite when Anil and Amrita started cavorting around the airport.


This cap doesn't capture the grand, open-space fun of dancing on the tarmac while planes take off. Wheeee!

All the performances are relatively understated and charismatic (and Anil Kapoor is awfully boyish and skinny!). The production value is low, in keeping with the setting, and there are few songs. Yet this was such a sweet nugget of a film, with such a contented (even enlightened!) message, that we definitely recommend it.

And don't forget, PPCC readers, Anil on Regis tomorrow!