The year end romantic film bloat: Khoobsurat, Daawat-e-Ishq & Kill Dil.

So it finally happened: Shaad Ali has has a misfire that I actually agree with the haters on. Jhoom Barabar Jhoom was a film not everybody was on board with (critics and audiences loathed it, but it gained a cult following that cannot stop rewatching Ticket To Hollywood), and Bunty aur Babli is not a universal dil squish, either, but I legitimately found myself telling a friend earlier this year, "He hasn't made a bad film yet." Well, he has now.

Kill Dil arrives limply clichéd from the get-go, but never catches fire in terms of story, visuals or emotions. The tale of two rascals (Ranveer Singh & Ali Zafar) separated by one of them wanting to turn good as love conquers all (Parineeti Chopra) while a father figure disapproves (a spry Govinda performance) just never really goes anywhere interesting, and it's a shame.

I get the sense it's trying to occupy some clever mid-ground between being an unapologetic tribute and/or parody to 90's cheeseball actioners and a more modern take on an age-old story, but it never reaches the point of just being a story you buy into. Instead, everybody in the film falters when the story provides such a shaky surface for them. Ali Zafar is good but doesn't frankly get to do much, Govinda has some great moments but his character is unlikable, and the main pair simply doesn't exude much of anything, despite trying very hard. I wish I had an explanation for why this doesn't work besides the obvious two: don't center your movie around cold-blooded murder, and aspire to be more than a tribute to older films.

Khoobsurat at least partly succeeds in being a part of the genre it aspires to be: a Disney princess romance in the 21st century. Sonam Kapoor's Milli is a your standard young adult novel heroine, sub-sect Mary Sue batallion. She's clutzy! She's good at her job! She cares about other people but has zero social skills! She says the wrong thing, it's awkward! A cute guy (newcomer, way-too-good-for-all-of-this Fawad Afzal Khan) is annoyed by her at first but really likes her, though, because she's just so lovable.

I liked this film for the fluffpiece that it was, and then I got increasingly impatient with it. I realised quickly I was no longer a young girl, but a young woman; I no longer want to be a princess. I can't believe in these inane fantasies anymore unless they have some sort of characterisation and fantastic acting behind them, and Sonam doesn't quite get there. It feels uncomfortable to watch her try; the best of acting is so effortless, you aren't forced to think about it as you watch somebody emote their way through a fairly simple scene. About an hour in the movie had lost me, and I wasn't going to be swept away by it. Ah well.

What a strange year for Parineeti, to start out as one of my absolute favourite newcomers of the past years and then end up with a confusingly mixed resumé towards the end, completely outdone by a woman whose first film was my worst film of 2012 by a long, long shot (Alia has come a long way, hasn't she?). I wasn't particularly into Hasee Toh Phasee, Kill Dil was disappointing, but hey, at least she had this one. Daawat-e-Ishq, a feast of love, was a vaguely food-themed movie that touches on the issue of dowry, and ends up being a modestly lovely little romcom. At the same time, however, it's all just so unmemorable I almost struggle to come up with other adjectives to describe it. There's some cuteness, delicious food scenes, and some solid acting by both of the young leads (Aditya Roy Kapoor).

The big conversation of the past few years has been the continued success or lack of success of the new generation of actors. Looking over at Parineeti Chopra's filmography, she seems destined to pick films that aren't quite amazing, and therefore never display her skills in a way that her fans, such as myself, would quite hope. It's quite easy to say "pick better movies" but who knows what kind of offers she's even getting. I still continue to hope for good things for her; she's got a spark that I think is missing from many of the other newcomers, so I hope that her presence is here to stay.

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As the filmi year 2014 draws to a close, I'll be writing up my year's end post, and once again must apologise for not maintaining the blog as diligently as I probably should've. Still, I did a lot of travel this year, as well as a lot of work, and I even crossed some things off my bucket list. I've also got some movies I've yet to write about - including my favourite film of the year.

Talk to you soon.

Suno Aisha.. (About Aisha and other Emmaites.)

Aisha came out around a year ago, and I finally managed to watch it. Seeing as how I cannot talk about the film in detail without going into previous modernized Emma adaptations such as Clueless, this review will have two parts: one short spoiler-free part, and one more detailed, spoiler-filled part which compares and contrasts it to the other adaptations of the story.

Part ek:

I pretty much loved Aisha, even though it was far from being flawless. In fact, while the film is overall well-made and executed the Austen story well for the most part, there are a couple of problems, especially with Aisha's characterization that I can understand may take some viewers from the Loving Camp and place them in the Meh Camp. I'm still with the Loving Camp, but I do wonder whether that'll change. Sometimes phrasing the problems in form of a movie review can make them more apparent to me as a viewer, which takes some enjoyment out of the film. Regardless, Aisha serves its purpose as a fluffy romcom with good-looking, charming leads, a well-paced storyline and I still dig the soundtrack an awful lot.

Plus it has Abhay Deol. That, in and of itself. Well. You know.

Part do (SPOILERS):

I'll state at this point that Clueless, Amy Heckerling's 90's Valley girl spin on the classic Austen novel Emma, is one of my favourite films of all time. Not that it's a master piece, but it is one of those few perfect, charming teen comedies as well as a pretty nice romcom. I watched it as a kid, loved it and have rewatched it numerous times since. On the other hand, I have a weird relationship with some of the other Emma adaptations. I can watch the miniseries that have been made and enjoy them, and while I don't love the Gwyneth Paltrow film, I suppose that's okay as well. However, to me, Clueless' Cher is the most lovable of the Emma characters. I suppose the other versions are closer to the original version in the books (which I've read but have very vague memories of).

So you could say I love the general story structure of Emma; the fact that it's a female centric story where the main character has to learn some pretty crucial lessons that she isn't always in the right, and that sometimes her class prejudice can cloud her from seeing things that are truly there. I think we all enjoy watching characters that learn things and when they do bad things, get their comeuppance. Simple enough, that.

Now, at first appearance I thought Aisha was a little less charming than Clueless, and just a tad more commercial/consumeristic. What was with that L'Oreal advertisement in the middle of my movie? Learn to be subtle, product placers of Bollywood, for goodness' sake. But the film grew on me, mostly on the backs of the side characters. Shefali (Amrita Puri) was just delightful and Abhay Deol did not disappoint in the least. There is a lot to be said for Sonam Kapoor's Aisha, too. It's easy to believe that somebody as gorgeous as Sonam, growing in wealth, could be this sort of clueless, spoiled character who always gets her way and always thinks her way is the right way for things to go. She's believable, and while the role doesn't exactly feel like a stretch (not that Sonam is like this in real life, but I'm sure she's run into the type, being the daughter of Anil Kapoor, and hanging out in the glitzy upper-class filmi circles), she does a good job.

I guess where the problems come in is the "comeuppance" part of the storyline, the point that everything has been building up to. The thought I couldn't shake after the film was over was this: does Aisha truly learn anything? We see her moping around a lot, eating ice cream (in that most terrible of female clichés), and finally seeing her friendships fall apart. We see her realize how much she loves Arjun, which is all very well, and we see that she's probably quit meddling in the affairs of others. I walked away from the movie, liking it a lot, but wondering if these lessons she's got to learn were portrayed believably in the film.

In comparsion to Clueless, I just thought that Cher had a very visible "oh, I get it now" moment and her efforts to make amends to her previous actions were portrayed in a way that really redeemed the character. And even before that, as spoiled and silly and annoying as Cher was, she also had a big heart and you could really get a sense of it as you watched her go through her consumerist, vapid existence. With Aisha, the helping of others truly feels mostly self-serving, and so she comes off as a less sympathetic character. She isn't clueless - you can see she's smart, but using her smarts in a very foolish way. Cher was smart, too, but (I think) very unaware of it, or thinking that her smarts only applied to the social world of high school. Aisha's character is not a teen, she's an adult, and though young, it sometimes feels like she should know better by now, and heed the advice of Arjun instead of stubbornly picking up her pet projects with very self-centered goals.

This all makes it sound like I hate Aisha - I most certainly don't. It's just that I can see the flaws in the characterization, perhaps where they just wanted to glam her up as much as possible, they forgot there are ways of making her more sympathetic to the viewer as well.

And as seems to be the Abhay Deol character cliché at this point, his Arjun does come off like a bit too smug at times. This didn't rid a whole lot of enjoyment of the movie for me, but it was something I picked up on, and something that could rub others the wrong way.

But despite all these points, I did genuinely enjoy the film a whole lot. I liked the fact that while Pinky comes off as quite the bitch with regards to Aisha picking up Shefali as a new project, you can later see at least partly why she's upset about this. It's not the first time Aisha's done it, and it's also that Aisha tends to not notice Pinky when something like this comes around - like her friends are simply accessories, and sometimes the newest one is her favourite. Shefali was great, and all the moments between her and Saurabh were too adorable for their own good. And the song picturizations were quite a delight (L'Oreal commercial aside). Big ups, Amit Trivedi.

So.. what did you think?

Blues and hues of Saawariya.

So there it is. Saawariya directed by that-guy-whose-style-looked-like-something-I-didn't-care-to-see, in all it's Region 2 (that's European DVD region for those unaware) glory, staring at me in the shop shelf, placed mistakenly under the "Comedy" section. I know it's probably not smart, but forgive me - I rarely see Indian movies or "Indian-esque" films in my local shop, and when I do, I go a bit crazy (this explains the Marigold DVD in my shelf). The cover says "A genuine Indian Bollywood-movie" in Finnish - yes, as opposed to those ungenuine Indian Bollywood movies.

And so I do buy it, even though I'm almost certain I won't love it and pop it in on New Year's Eve.

The plot shouldn't be new to anybody. Based off Dostoyevski's "White Nights", Ranbir Kapoor (son of Rishi & Neetu) plays Raj, who comes to a very blue town to become a successful poet or musician, or something. He's like a Guru Dutt character on a sugar high, whose poetry sounds more cheesy than genuine. He meets Gulabji (Rani Mukherjee, probably the best performance and character in the film), a prostitute who he befriends and ends up falling in love with the beautiful Sakina (Sonam Kapoor, daughter of Anil), who is waiting for her own love, Imaan (Salman Khan).
Yadda yadda yadda. Sonam and Rani are both fantastically beautiful, Ranbir is generally good and proves he is capable of dancing like any new generation star should be, Salman gets to be effective (with kohl!) and the youngsters manage some very good, very convincing scenes together. But little by little, I realize I don't really care for the movie. It's not exactly dislike - it's simply apathy towards the story, towards the characters and their fates. When the film ends, I sort of shrug. "Already? Okay."

The dark blue colour scheme starts out lovely and the visuality of the film is undeniable, but it all gets to be a bit too much at some point. It just feels like it doesn't serve a purpose of any kind; had the story kept me engrossed in the film, I might've found it interesting or potentially meaningful. Like maybe the mood of the film changes the way I perceive the colours of it. But that doesn't really happen; the visuality of it seems skin-deep, if even that. I screencapped a lot, especially the lovely ladies of the film, but I would not call it the prettiest Hindi film ever.

So unfortunate. The songs, even though I quite liked them, felt awkwardly paced and whatever other things I found promising or good, I ended up being quite disappointed in. Raj starts out a funny, likable character and ends up going through a puzzling metamorphosis into a crazy-in-love guy that might've been more understandable, had the script been stronger. Sakina also suffers from mild insanity caused by love, but for whatever reason, it seems just the tiny bit more believable. The poetic dialogues - or wannabe-poetic if nothing else - seem to slow everything down and even though I had subtitles in my own language, I kept zoning out on the story and what was being said.

Oh well. I try to remember the things I did like - Gulabji and the kids when they're in the first stages of getting to know one another. The rest, to quote Avril Lavigne's ever-green tune "Girlfriend", is quite simply "so whatever".