REVIEW 290: KHOOBSURAT

Release date:	September 19, 2014
Director:	Shashanka Ghosh
Cast: Language:	Sonam Kapoor, Fawad Khan, Ratna Pathak Shah, Aamir Raza Hussain, Kirron Kher Hindi

It takes a brave man to remake a much-loved Hrishikesh Mukherjee classic. Director Shashanka Ghosh’s Khoobsurat matches the mood of the 1980 original, but he wisely borrows just the bare bones of the story to come up with something that’s uniquely 2014 and uniquely his own.

This Khoobsurat then is the story of a bubbly, guileless, kind, successful young Delhi-based physiotherapist called Milli Chakravarty (Sonam Kapoor) who is hired to treat a wheelchair-bound erstwhile Rajasthan royal. ‘Maharaja’ Shekhar Rathore (Aamir Raza Hussain) is a tough nut to crack. Milli is his 40^th doctor so far but she soon realises it’s his spirit that needs reviving, not his legs, for reasons this review won’t reveal. The Rathores live a strict, regimented life in their lavish palace overseen by the propah disciplinarian ‘Maharani’ Nirmala (Ratna Pathak Shah). Making up the rest of the family are their son, the dashing but boring workaholic ‘Yuvraaj’ Vikram (Pakistani actor Fawad Khan), and conflicted school-going daughter Divya.  

Like Maria in Sound of Music, Manju (Rekha) in the old Khubsoorat (different spelling) and other films in a similar mould, we know from the start here too that Milli will win everyone over by the end. It matters not, because the journey to that point makes for a sweet romantic comedy.

This may seem blasphemous to Hrishida’s fans, but if you set aside those rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia for a moment, you might agree that Manju/Rekha’s antics in her sister’s marital home, especially her loudness when she first entered there, defied believability. Milli’s exuberance never once resembles Manju’s early idiocy and is, therefore, more credible. This is a chirpy girl brought up in a happy, informal middle-class household by supportive parents, her convention-defying Punjabi mother Manju (Kirron Kher) and her quiet Bengali father (Kaizad Kotwal). Thrown into unfamiliar environs, Milli refuses to put a lid on her joie de vivre yet never comes across as being unaware of her surroundings or of how she sticks out like a sore thumb.

Sonam here does something she should do more often: she does NOT play a designerwear-addicted ultra-glam shopaholic and/or spoilt rich kid whose on-screen character mirrors her off-screen persona; quite the opposite and she looks stunning despite that. To find her Milli though, she reaches not into a wardrobe but into her self for that X-factor we saw in Saawariya’s Sakina, to deliver effusiveness and innocence tempered with sensitivity and wisdom.

Fawad’s staid Vikram is a perfect foil to her effervescence. It doesn’t hurt that he fits well into those suits and gives us a glimpse of a sexy torso in his bedroom one night, without strutting around like a peacock as some Bollywood heroes do these days. The supporting cast is strong, and the sweet chemistry between Ratna and Aamir merits a mention.

By now Kirron Kher could probably do the over-wrought Punjabi mom with her eyes closed. It’s to her credit that despite the burden of playing a cliche, she manages to be funny.

For the most part, Indira Bisht’s screenplay is consistent and realistic. One major grouse: the writing of Vikram’s character. We see him a lot, meet him often, yet don’t get to know him much. It’s easy to understand why Vikram falls in love with Milli. It’s also easy to see why she would be sexually attracted to him – c’mon, he’s cute! – but what evoked love? Can’t quite tell.

The writing does get occasionally lazy, with one particular situation of convenience being drawn up just to fit plot requirements. I mean, how likely is it that a royal Rajasthan household would offer a room with one bed to two guests, one male and the other female?

Early on in the film, another hard-to-believe scenario is unthinkingly thrown in to establish Milli’s egalitarianism. I can imagine a woman like her being kind to household staff, but how likely is it that the crazy-yet-sensible Milli would party, drink and dance wildly with them without stopping for a moment to wonder if the male employees might misunderstand her, considering the gender segregation prevalent in so much of traditional Indian society?

The film also unnecessarily slows down in the last half hour, feels stretched in Vikram’s interactions with Milli’s family and could have done without the generic song Abhi toh party shuru hui hai accompanying the end credits. The spotlight is almost entirely on Sonam in that number. Unfair to Fawad? Yes. But her family is co-producing the film and well, this is what Bollywood’s male stars do to heroines in entire films most of the time, so therefore ergo...

That song apart, Sneha Khanwalkar’s pleasant compositions with lyrics by Kausar Munir are unobtrusively stitched into the story; they are not lip synced but play in the background. The chosen locations show us a Rajasthan beyond sand dunes, and DoP Tushar Kanti Ray delivers eye-pleasing visuals without trying to impress with the grandeur of natural scenery or palaces.

Besides being fun, this is a sensible film. It’s non-judgmental towards Nirmala Rathore despite her harshness. The humour is never raucous and often used to convey an important point: note Milli’s response to Nirmala’s confusion on discovering that Ms Chakravarty considers herself a Punjabi. Except for some rough patches I’ve already grumbled about, this is a well-told story. There you go Sajid Khan, frothy does not have to mean foolish. Khoobsurat is proof of that.

PS: (1) Nice opening credits with visuals of the characters in gilded frames, against the backdrop of what looks like jacquard silk. (2) Is Manju named thus in a bow to Hrishida’s heroine?

Rating (out of five stars): ***

CBFC Rating (India):	U/A
Running time:	130 minutes

Photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/DisneyKhoobsurat

REVIEW 74: MUMMY PUNJABI

Release date:	August 31, 2011
Director:	Pammi Somal
Cast:	Kirron Kher, Kanwaljeet Singh, Jackie Shroff, Sachin Sharma, Viraf Patel, Nimisha Goswami, Urvashi Gandhi, Simran Vaid, Special appearance by Gurdass Mann

The saddest part of watching Mummy Punjabi is the realisation that Kirron Kher deserves better, but is tragically limited by the Hindi film industry because of its narrow vision for female character actors. Equally sad is the fact that the concept of this film is very real and the basic storyline is moving. But as we all know, that is just not enough.

Mummy Punjabi is about an elderly couple in Chandigarh with children of marriageable age. Mom (Kirron Kher) – the focal point of the film – is an attractive and feisty busybody who spends her days trying to get brides for her two sons. For reasons that are explained only in passing, she’s not worried about her daughter at all. Dad seems to love her despite the jibes he constantly throws her way and his open condescension towards her. The film follows the mother’s efforts to plan out her children’s lives and the loneliness the elderly must contend with when their young ones leave the nest, capturing the human tendency to work towards certain goals while not watching out for the inevitable consequences.

It’s the story of lakhs of well-off Punjabi couples who send their children to the West in search of what they believe is a better life, forgetting that the US is not quite around the corner. Debutant director Pammi Somal knows Chandigarh and its people well. That’s clear right from the choice of her heroine’s name (Kher is “Baby” in the film, though everyone addresses her as “Mummyji”) to the poignance of that spacious house and sprawling lawns with no one but a gray-haired husband and wife to occupy it towards the end. But though Baby/Mummyji is a character that’s been well-thought-out, well cast and well acted, the same can’t be said of the rest of the players in the film.

Inconsistent screenplay, characterisation and casting; indifferent music; questionable production values; attention-diverting sub-plots ... Mummy Punjabi suffers from all this and more. Mummyji and her husband feel like real people. But their nosy and glamorous maid (played by Divya Dutta) comes across as a caricature. Too much footage is devoted to this irritating satellite character. Other supporting roles are played by actors with limited charisma and/or talent. And Jackie Shroff lumbers through his performance as Mummyji’s devoted suitor from her college days, with a beard and turban that seem to greatly weigh him down.

Kher has played the loud Punjabi mother so many times that I bet she knows this role like the back of her hand. She balances out her character’s boisterousness in Mummy Punjabi with some emotionally wrenching moments. Kanwaljeet (playing Mummyji’s husband) is an attractive actor who has aged with both dignity and grace. But he is hemmed in here by some very awkward dialogue writing.

Where Mummy Punjabi worked for me is in the latter half of the second half, when the couple must cope with an empty nest. The mellowing of their relationship, the companionship they provide each other, the apparent purposelessness of their lives all added up to give me a lump in my throat. Good job here, Ms Somal! I also appreciate the fact that the film adopts a non-judgmental tone towards the children: they do love their parents but are simply caught up in the circle of life and with the business of living. This is an interesting contrast to that hit mainstream film on the elderly, Baghban, in which every single one of Amitabh-Hema’s sons and their wives are painted as personifications of evil, perhaps because moderation is not as immediately attractive to mainstream viewers as extreme positions and exaggerations. Unfortunately, Mummy Punjabi takes too long to arrive at this juncture, and there’s no escaping the overall amateurish feel of this film which is trying too hard to be cute, cool and funny in too many places (right from the silly title to Mummyji’s pathetic English) and is downright stupid in parts (I barfed at the marriage bureau owner’s overtures towards Mummyji).

Worst of all, the film has been made in English, but for reasons best known to the production house, they previewed the dubbed Hindi version for the Delhi press. The mismatch between the lip movements of the actors and the dialogues we hear is exceedingly distracting in this version (cleverer translations, anyone?). But despite my devotion to duty, I could not bring myself to visit a theatre to watch this film a second time, to check if the English original is any better. Another two hours of my life frittered away?! No way!

Rating (out of five): *

CBFC Rating:                       U without cuts

Running time:                        122 Minutes

Language:                              English (a dubbed Hindi version has also been released)

Photograph courtesy: http://mummypunjabi.com/