REVIEW 23: YEH FAASLEY

Release date: March 4, 2011

Director: Yogesh Mittal

Cast: Tena Desae, Anupam Kher, Pavan Malhotra, Rushad Rana, Suhasini Mulay, Seema Biswas

The door opens …

Devinder Devilal Dua enters …

Cut to his daughter who is seated in the room …

Da-dhaam goes the music …

Cut to Dua who says …

Well, never mind what he says. Because by this point post-interval in Yeh Faasley, virtually every scene had been stretched to such an extent in this fashion, that I had completely lost interest in the film.

It’s unfortunate, because Yeh Faasley starts off with promise. Debutant director Yogesh Mittal manages to conjure up an enticingly eerie atmosphere as he takes us into the story of young Arunima Dua. She is the only child of the wealthy, widowered businessman Devinder Devilal Dua and his late wife, a music-loving rajkumari from an erstwhile royal family of Rajasthan. Arunima is extremely fond of her father. But circumstances conspire to rake up suspicions that all may not be what it seems. Did her mother really die in an accident or was she murdered? Were her parents happy together? Is her father a good man who is being targeted because a ‘commoner’ ought not to marry ‘above his station’? Was her mother having an affair?

The questions, when they first arise in Yeh Faasley, are intriguing. But boredom sets in with the unduly long-drawn-out attempts to build up suspense through repeated flashbacks to the day Arunima’s mother died. With some concise editing, this is a device that could have been effective. Heck, if Kurosawa could do it, why not Mittal? But when the climax arrived two hours and 30 minutes from the start of Yeh Faasley, I was really past caring whodunit.

To make matters worse, the actor playing a young Devinder Dua in the flashbacks just wasn’t good enough. If he was, would Yeh Faasley have been saved? That’s hard to tell because films like this one are a reminder that good actors are helpless at the hands of inefficient direction and editing. When a languorous song is inserted into a murder mystery at a point where it should be hurtling towards its climax, when the camera lingers more than necessary on almost every face, when the director doesn’t know when to yell “cut” … that’s when ever-dependable actors like Anupam Kher (an older Devinder Dua), Pavan Malhotra and Suhasini Mulay are completely wasted.

These veterans may come to terms with this opportunity lost. But what about youngsters Rushad Rana and Tena Desae? Soap opera star Rana – who plays Arunima’s friend in Yeh Faasley – is an attractive and talented actor with an impressive screen presence. Although this is not his first Hindi film, the significance of the role means that it had the potential to be his big big-screen break. Desae – a remarkably pretty and successful model – makes her Bollywood debut playing Arunima in this film. She may not be terribly impactful as an actress but she comes across as sincere all the same. Imagine what she might have been in a less dull film!

Rating (out of five): *1/2

(Photograph courtesy http://www.yehfaasleythemovie.com/)