Somewhere along the way, in the attempt to
modernize and keep up with the changing times, the heart’s gone missing from
our movies. What pass for romantic comedies these days are bland, bloodless
bores, always perfectly manicured and trendily attired, but wary of emotion and
short on charm. Our filmmakers have upgraded their style quotients and
production values – attention is paid to the minutest details, and sets are
often immaculately designed - but the characters that populate them are often
hollow mannequins, hard to engage with, let alone feel for.
It’s hard to think of more than a handful
of memorable rom-coms in the last few years – “Jab We Met”, “Jaane Tu… Ya Jaane
Na”, and the recent “Band Baaja Baaraat” come to mind. Right from its first
trailer, “Jab We Met” sparkled with a rare charm – one look at Geet (Kareena)
taking off on a bewildered Aditya (Shahid) with “Koi doubt mat rakhna dil mein,
Sikhni hoon main Bhatinda ki!” was enough to get excited about the movie. It
turned out to be absolutely wonderful – honest, funny, superbly well written,
with crackling chemistry between the leads, and a strong emotional core. “Jaane
Tu… Ya Jaane Na”, too was beautifully written – down to earth and relatable,
with just the right amount of whack thrown in with the “Ranjhore Ke Rathore”
fable. The most recent of the lot, “Band Baaja Baaraat”, turned out to be
surprisingly winsome – not too many people expected much from this latest
YashRaj offering, but the production house that was built on the successes of
its romantic movies showed that it still knows a thing or two about conjuring
magic.
So then, of course Bollywood has what it
takes to make great rom-coms. And yet, most of the time it delivers the plastic
likes of "Pyaar Impossible", "I Hate Luv Storys",
"Anjaana Anjaani" and "Break Ke Baad" – teflon coated
movies that simply won't stick in minds or hearts, however much enthusiastic
movie buffs might try. Even directors of the best rom-coms in recent years have
fallen short when given bigger budgets and higher expectations. After “Jab We
Met”, Imtiaz Ali went on to make the far less satisfying, although commercially
successful “Love Aaj Kal”. Same with Abbas Tyrewala, writer-director of
"Jaane Tu.. Ya Jaane Na" - his "Jhootha Hi Sahi" opened to
dismal reviews and a cold box office reception. It's unfair to compare movies,
of course, even those made by the same director. But it's rather curious that
the moment these talented writer-directors shifted their stories to unfamiliar
foreign settings, they seem to have lost their essence. I can’t, for the life
of me, fathom why movies about young Indian folks need to be set abroad all the
time (*all* the turkeys listed above were either set, or moved rather abruptly,
to foreign shores) – do our filmmakers really think our NRIs can’t ‘identify’
with stories set in India, or is it simply a practical matter of sops and easier
shoots abroad?
Even when these movies stay in India, they
seem to be set in an India that no one can actually recognize. The characters
are ridiculously rich by default, their neighborhoods look like they belong in New
York or Beverly Hills, most don’t have to work at all, or have “dad ka
business” to manage. With all regular human struggles and conflicts eliminated,
the only thing left for these characters to fight is their own insecurities,
laziness, selfishness or most times, sheer dumbness – small wonder then, they
make for very dull movies. What’s there to root for? Who’s going to cry for poor
little rich Aisha (Sonam Kapoor)? It’s not that Aisha’s too rich for sympathy,
it’s just that she’s way too hollow to evoke any reaction at all. Remember “Dil
Chahta Hai”? That gem from a decade ago had all the pitfalls I just mentioned and
yet, when Aakash (Aamir Khan) broke down on the phone with his father, it was a
heart-wrenching moment. The movie and character arcs built up to that moment,
and when it arrived, there was genuine emotional heft. As opposed to the caricatured emotion that Jai
(Imran Khan) evoked in pretty much the same situation in “I Hate Luv Storys” –
a laughable attempt by an actor clearly out of depth, in a situation that was
clearly too shallow to fish for audience sympathy.
With Bollywood struggling to do what it
used to do best, there’s little else to turn to – Telugu romances have gotten
stuck in a strange, almost surreal rut, where the same characters and
situations get played over and over and over again, movie after movie after
movie. The actors remain constant, the actresses keep changing – but their voices
remain the same, lest audiences get startled with too much variety. There is an
endless parade of fresh new faces with each new Telugu film, and they all speak
with the same high-pitched, faux-accented, supposedly chirpy voice. Who speaks
Telugu like that? And what are these characters sniffing? They’re always,
determinedly, exaggeratedly, cloyingly bubbly. The low-budget “Ashta Chamma”
was the last delightful rom-com from the Telugu industry. That was way back in
2008. Last year’s “Ye Maaya Chesaave’ was no masterpiece, but was at least the
characters were fresh, and the voices too. Everything else swayed between crass
and clueless.
Hollywood has been even worse – serving up
washed up old movie stars in the most obviously formulaic fashion. Between Jennifer
Aniston, Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Lopez, we got “The Bounty Hunter”, “The
Switch”, “Sex And The City 2” and “The Back-Up Plan” – all prime candidates for
Razzies. Sandra Bullock & Ryan Reynolds at least managed a bit of charm
with “The Proposal”. And then there was the Twilight series that drove teens
crazy worldwide, so maybe there’s some hope there. But given that even Ekta
Kapoor has jumped onto the vampire love story bandwagon, the trend is a little
frightening. What next, a Ramsay brothers’ rom-com?
All right then, I’m done complaining for
2010. Let’s brighten up for the brand new year. And hope that someone,
somewhere is listening to the heartfelt plea of all movie buffs the world over
– pray, do someone put some heart back in them movies. And while you’re at it,
put some spark back too. Happy 2011.
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wrote this for channel6, hyderabad.
