REVIEW 134: ISHAQZAADE

Release date:	May 11, 2012
Director:	Habib Faisal
Cast:	Parineeti Chopra, Arjun Kapoor, Gauahar Khan

Regressiveness is never more dangerous than when it’s pretending to be liberal. Ishaqzaade is a cleverly deceptive anti-women film that diverts attention from its true colours with a heroine who spits fire and can fire a gun with panache rarely seen in a Bollywood leading lady. But like so many Hindi films that have come before, it also stipulates that a woman must forgive even the worst, most inexcusable crime committed by the man she loves. And make no mistake about this: what the hero does to the heroine at one point is nothing but a crime!

The film’s shockingly backward stance on women is particularly disappointing because it is directed by Habib Faisal who made that excellent Rishi Kapoor-Neetu Kapoor-starrer Do Dooni Chaar and wrote the fabulous Band Baaja Baaraat. Don’t get me wrong … I have no doubt situations and characters like the ones in this film do exist in the real world, but it is always clear when a film is taking a position on an issue as opposed to a position being taken only by a character/s in that film. Ishaqzaade’s story by Aditya Chopra and Habib Faisal, screenplay and dialogues by Faisal leave us in no doubt where the makers of this film stand on women’s rights and sexual aggression. This is unfortunate because Ishaqzaade has so much else going for it!

The story is set in the small town of Almore in northern India. The patriarchs of the Qureshi and Chauhan clans are standing for elections from opposing parties. Against this backdrop, Chauhan’s no-good grandson Parma and Qureshi’s feisty daughter Zoya meet and fall in love. As you can imagine, because of the political rivalries and religious differences involved, the path to the altar is not smooth for them.

The first half of Ishaqzaade is quite lovely – the humour is unusual and unrelenting, there’s a natural style to the storytelling and there’s a twist at every turn leading to an entirely unexpected scenario right before the interval. Like most Hindu-Muslim romances in Bollywood, this one too plays it safe and sticks to the tradition of making the woman the minority community member while the Hindu in the relationship is the man! That apart, I enjoyed the way Faisal’s smoothly written lines don’t pussyfoot around the offensive terms people tend to use in real life to describe members of other communities: Parma repeatedly calls Zoya a Musalli to her face, she calls him a kaafir. But post interval, the story goes out of control, the medieval attitude towards women is revealed, the dialogues begin to sound over-smart and the humour feels misplaced considering the grim setting. All this leads up to a completely unsatisfactory conclusion!

Debutant Arjun Kapoor – son of producers Boney Kapoor and Mona Kapoor – plays Parma in the first half of the film as if he was born into the role. This ishaqzaada is first a haraamzaada (bastard) in the fullest sense of that word – a trigger-happy goonda, a liar, blackmailer, a regular visitor to brothels, an oppressor of the poor. In the second half though, when a more nuanced performance is called for, he falls short. He also needs to guard against the fact that a couple of his facial expressions seem lifted right off Abhishek Bachchan. Still, because he’s got an interesting screen presence I’ll wait to see him in his next film before deciding whether he was simply being himself in the first half of Ishaqzaade or he was acting well.

Gauahar Khan as the prostitute with the golden heart and the actress playing Parma’s mother are the pick of the supporting cast. The mom is also blessed with the most credible and consistent character in the film. The rest of the cast is a mixed bag.  

The star of the film though is Parineeti Chopra playing the spirited Zoya. This role has much in common with the cheeky kid she played in her debut film Ladies vs Ricky Bahl just months back, but she manages to bring enough to this performance to make Zoya’s pizzazz different. Parineeti’s obvious talent is no compensation, however, for Zoya’s conformist, wimpish behavior after the interval that seems completely out of character. In fact, Zoya’s inconsistent characterisation must rank as one of the worst pieces of writing in a Hindi film in recent years!

Discussing the music, cinematography and other technical aspects of Ishaqzaade seems superfluous considering the way the film’s fun and seemingly feminist first half is marred by its anti-women second half. Perhaps this should not come as a surprise. After all producers Yash Raj Films are the ones who gave us Laaga Chunari Mein Daag which suggested that an abla naari in the big city with a family to support back in her village has no option but to become a hooker!

There’s more to liberalism than putting a gun in your heroine’s hands!

Rating (out of five): **1/2

CBFC Rating:                       U/A

Language:                              Hindi

Photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Ishaqzaade?ref=ts#!/Ishaqzaade