REVIEW 668: EK LADKI KO DEKHA TOH AISA LAGA

Release date:	February 1, 2019
Director:	Shelly Chopra Dhar
Cast: Language:	Sonam Kapoor Ahuja, Anil Kapoor, Rajkummar Rao, Juhi Chawla, Abhishek Duhan, Sara Arjun, Brijendra Kala, Seema Pahwa, Madhumalti Kapoor, Alka Kaushik, Kanwaljit Singh, Regina Cassandra, Akshay Oberoi Hindi

(If you have seen the trailer and followed the promotions of this film, this review contains no spoilers for you)

What might a conservative Hindu consider even more objectionable than the daughter of the family marrying a Muslim man? Answer: how about the girl being in love with another girl?

The spotlight on this ridiculous, tragi-comic heirarchy of biases is one of the many winning aspects of writer-director Shelly Chopra Dhar’s Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga. To bracket it as simply an LGBT-themed film or an inter-community romance would be what the protagonist herself might call an “upar upar waali” (superficial) reading of it though. Sure it is centred around young Sweety Chaudhary from Moga in Punjab who has spent her life hiding her truth from those dearest to her, but the film is not about same-gender love alone. It is about living and loving as we choose, not allowing societal norms around age, gender, religion or anything else to suffocate us and hamper our personal or professional choices.

Written by Gazal Dhaliwal and Chopra Dhar, Ek Ladki stars Sonam Kapoor Ahuja as Sweety, Anil Kapoor as Sweety’s Dad Balbir Chaudhary, Rajkummar Rao as the struggling playwright Sahil Mirza and Juhi Chawla as his friend Chattro. In some ways, half the writers’ battle is won even before their narrative kicks off. A sweetness pervades the screen as soon as Anil enters the picture in the opening moments. After all, nostalgia is one of the most powerful weapons in the hands of any filmmaker, and we have been primed for this sentiment from the moment we heard of the cast and the title. How can emotions not surge at the memory of the blockbuster song of the same name from the legendary R.D. Burman’s very last film soundtrack, or the memory of that film starring Anil as a young man, that same Anil who stands before us now with a gray beard and lined face, a living breathing testament to how gracefully we could hope to age if we treat our bodies well? And we see him now sharing space with his real-life daughter who was a child when 1942: A Love Story was released. Bring out those handkerchiefs already, I say.

Thankfully, Ek Ladki does not rest on these laurels. It has a story to tell and a point – many points – to make, and it does both without seeming crowded or preachy. This is not to say that it is without imperfections. Far from it. The soundtrack, for one, is decidedly average, even when it reprises Burman’s melody for its title track. And I felt exceedingly uncomfortable with a conversation between Sweety and Sahil in which she asks him to find other Sweetys in other towns and “usey bhi bachana” (save her/them too). This is a condescending line for the film to take, irrespective of who is uttering the dialogue. The marginalised do not need saviours from dominant communities, what is needed are allies.

Besides, I could not figure out why the trailer tried to build great mystery around the object of Sweety’s affection, but the producers let the secret out to the press during the promotional period, while the film itself again tries to needlessly build up suspense just as the trailer did, although anyone watching both closely could have seen what was coming from a mile.

Still, there is much else to recommend Ek Ladki in an industry where sensitivity around LGBT+ persons remains rare, a focus on lesbian women in particular is virtually non-existent (no please, Fire is hardly a Bollywood film), and Onir’s fabulous My Brother Nikhil and I Am remain isolated instances of depth on this front from Bollywood. Leading the positives in Ek Ladki is the use of the comedy genre for such grave social commentary, and the skill the writers and director display while pulling it off without mocking the LGBT+ community.

This becomes possible because the strong screenplay is backed by an endearing cast. Sonam is suitably fragile, and Kollywood/Tollywood star Regina Cassandra has an arresting screen presence. Their equation though is overshadowed by the warm chemistry between Sonam and Anil on the one hand, Sonam and Rao on the other. Some of this has to do with the fact that Cassandra gets little screen time and the screenplay is more focused on those around the central couple than the couple themselves. You may see this as a play-it-safe approach or interpret this, as I do, as Dhaliwal and Chopra Dhar’s way of gently breaking it to the audience that same-gender love does not necessarily involve two cis men, contrary to what the current dominant public discourse tells us.

At different points in the narrative, different actors in this cracking ensemble invite the label “scene stealers”. Rao, for one, is in top form, and the ever-loveable, ever-hilarious Chawla’s performance begs the question why more and larger roles are not written for her. Brijendra Kala as Chaubey Uncle and Seema Pahwa as Billo Aunty are a hoot. Young Sweety is played with confidence and empathy by the award-winning child star Sara Arjun, whose pan-India filmography includes her role as Vikram’s daughter in Deiva Thirumagal (Tamil) and the titular heroine in Ann Maria Kalippilaanu (Malayalam).

The underrated Abhishek Duhan is impeccable as Sweety’s brother. But the lasting memory from Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga is of Anil taking a scene that could have been maudlin, insufferable and loud, and turning it into a heart-wrenching passage of acceptance, self-realisation and personal growth. Ek Veteran Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga...

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	121 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/ek-ladki-ko-dekha-toh-aisa-laga-movie-review-a-warm-ode-to-loving-and-living-as-we-choose-6007961.html

Poster courtesy:

https://www.facebook.com/foxstarhindi/ 

REVIEW 508: SHAB

Release date:	July 14, 2017
Director:	Onir
Cast: Language:	Ashish Bisht, Raveena Tandon, Arpita Chatterjee, Areesz Ganddi, Simon Frenay, Raj Suri, Anika Dhawan, Gaurav Nanda, Andrew Hoffland, Shray Rai Tiwari, Cameos: Sanjay Suri, fashion designers Varun Bahl and Wendell Rodricks Hindi with English

One of the great highs of being a cinephile comes from watching a new release by a director whose body of work you love, and discovering that they have done it again. There is, I have come to realise, a sub-conscious tension I experience as I enter a hall before any film, more so before a film by someone with a solid track record, and if the film turns out to be good, a sense of relief that washes over me as I leave – relief that those couple of hours of life were not wasted, and in the case of an artist I respect, relief that they have proved to be consistent.

My heart broke a little when I saw Shab this week. It has been helmed by Onir, who made the politically brave, mind-shatteringly beautiful My Brother Nikhil in 2005 and I Am in 2011, with the latter deservedly going on to win the year’s National Award for Best Hindi Film. Shab is his first directorial feature in six years, but the intervening period has, unfortunately, not been well spent.

The title comes from a Hindustani word for “night”. The story is about what goes on under cover of a metaphorical darkness in Delhi’s social circles, where young entrants on the glamour scene are used and abused by unscrupulous veterans, where a creative person you see at work in a posh colony could be supplementing their income by dabbling in the world’s oldest profession, and where bored rich married couples find excitement in infidelity.

In one of Shab’s earliest scenes, an aspiring model from a small town walks to the head of a catwalk in the briefest of shiny briefs, wiggles his butt and crotch about for the viewing consumption of a panel of judges seated below the stage, and introduces himself in broken English that causes them to snigger. He is achingly young and eager, but they appear not to see that. What they see instead is a target for their snobbery and their lust. 

It is a moment brimming with pathos and potential, not over- or under-done, but just right. Newcomer Ashish Bisht playing the boy-child on the ramp – Mohan from Dhanaulti – seems to have been well chosen for the role. As he stands there before that elite set, the picture of innocence and enthusiasm mixed with a dash of stupidity, anxious to impress and evidently impervious to their contempt, it is hard not to feel uneasy on his behalf and sorry for him. It is possible that Bisht is acting here, but to all appearances he is just being.

That fleeting passage perfectly illustrates the difference between the objectification of a person with the reins in their hands (such as a male superstar choosing to dance shirtless to Dard e disco, and other top heroes in India’s big film industries) versus a person with less power (heroines from the same film industries, including the seniors among them) versus those with no power at all (female debutants and even men like Mohan). No one touches Mohan during that trial, yet there is exploitation written all over it.

When the wealthy socialite Sonal Modi (Raveena Tandon) decides that Mohan is a worthy toy boy, we learn that he is not quite as innocent as he looks. She later re-christens him Azfar to fit him better into snooty circles, anoints him her fitness trainer, and starts carting him around wherever she goes. Azfar develops a swagger and a seductive air with women, and strains at the leash on which his mentor keeps him.

If Shab had been able to carry forward the nuanced air of discomfort in that opening talent hunt, it could have been special. Because of that promise, when at first we are introduced to a string of individuals and we watch their paths intersect, it seems like something might come of it. Unfortunately, Shab disintegrates within its first half hour. And so, we are hauled across the criss-crossing lives of character after character, from Mohan/Azfar, Sonal and her designer buddy Rohan Sud (Raj Suri), to restaurateur Neil (Areesz Ganddi) and his close friend Raina (Arpita Chatterjee), Raina’s sister Anu (Anika Dhawan) and her neighbour Benoit LeBlanc (Simon Frenay), Neil’s lovers, Raina’s clients, and… you know what, it does not matter, because the comatose narrative – divided pointlessly into the four seasons – left me so indifferent after a while, that I could not even remember their names.

The problem lies not with the multiplicity of characters or even the acting for the most part, but with the shallow writing, jagged editing (initially intriguing but distractingly choppy as time goes by) and inert direction. Shab somehow feels like a film Onir made in the middle of a million distractions. The editing has been credited to the usually reliable Irene Dhar Malik and Onir, the screenplay and dialogues to Merle Kröger and Onir, the Hindi dialogues to Adhiraj Singh and the dramaturgy to Kröger, while Urmi Juvekar has been acknowledged for the story idea – let them decide culpability amongst themselves in this case.

Whatever conclusion they may arrive at, the fact remains that even though some of the actors in Shab are worth caring for, not a single character is.

Bisht is sweet up to a point, but is lost to surface treatment by the writers. Tandon has screen presence and gorgeousness, but after an interesting introduction, is given little to do beyond be haughty, hot and horny.

Chatterjee is a veteran of the Bengali industry. She was strong in her Bollywood debut Chauranga (2016), which was co-produced but not directed by Onir. In Shab she is inexplicably stiff as cardboard, which weighs heavily on the already insubstantial writing of Raina. Ganddi and Frenay look like they might add up to something more with a better script, but they are so under-written that it is impossible to judge them by this film. Suri, thankfully, does not go stark raving camp like designers in the formulaic Madhur Bhandarkar mould, but his motivations in his final scene are one of this film’s many mysteries that I do not give a damn enough to crack.

Restraint cannot mean zero vitality, yet that is what you get in Shab. Worse, the film does not have anything new to say. We already know that wealth does not guarantee marital happiness, that freshers in the modelling and acting professions get taken advantage of sexually, that big cities can be challenging to small-town folk. We know of the casting couch, high-society call girls and closeted homosexuality. They exist, but what more can you tell us about them beyond what has already been told? What emotion can you stir up that has not already been felt?

If the answer to either question is “I don’t know”, here is another question: is the film worth making? Shab, sadly, was not.

Rating (out of five stars): *

CBFC Rating (India):	A
Running time:	108 minutes 27 seconds

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/ShabTheFilm/