Saawariya disappoints
10 November 2007 | Movie Reviews | No Comments
In a nameless picturesque town straight out of Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge, a free-spirited dreamer befriends a melancholic girl who spends three nights at the bridge waiting patiently for someone to return. By the time our hero learns that she already has a lover for whom she waits, it's too late, because over the course of these three nights, singing and dancing with her, teasing and playing with her, he's fallen deeply in love. Determined to charm her off her feet and to make her choose him over a man who may never return, his love is put to the ultimate test when she asks him to help unite her with the man she's pledged her heart to.
Starring newcomers Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor as Raj and Sakina, the protagonists in question, director Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Saawariya is a glossed-up, all song-and-dance take on Dostoevsky's classic tale White Nights, and also borrows judiciously from Luchino Visconti's 1957 film version. But where Visconti's black-and-white film stays faithful to the story's intimate set-up and stark feel, Bhansali goes for a larger-than-life, almost kingsize scale, throwing in dazzling colours, opulent sets, imaginatively choreographed musical numbers, a half-dozen references to Raj Kapoor's films, and the kind of melodrama you can expect only in a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film - remember Devdas?
Well, the problem with varnishing a simple love story with all those embellishments is that the very simplicity of the plot, the fragility of the characters' emotions is lost amidst all that showing-off. What you get as a result, is a love story without soul. Arbitrary, disjointed and leaving too many questions unanswered, Saawariya is easily Bhansali's most self-indulgent exercise yet. Too busy taking himself too seriously, the director decides he has no obligations to tell us where or when this story unfolds. Is this a period piece, or are we in the present day? Pray tell us, where in the world is this idyllic town — bathed in neon glow and littered with windmills and clock-towers and a Venetian canal in the middle of a town square?
Rani Mukherjee playing Gulabji the hooker with a heart of gold, is the only character whose pathos is relatable, and despite the cheesy dialogue she touches your heart with a performance that is inherently earnest.
And now, on to the two debutants - as Sakina, the child-woman going through myriad emotions, Sonam Kapoor manages to hold her own despite the fact that hers is clearly the weakest written role. It's a wishy-washy character that's part-annoying part-ridiculous, and it's unfair that the young actress must wrestle to make sense of such a distinctly unlikable part. Ranbir Kapoor, meanwhile, when he isn't struggling to ape his grandfather's mannerisms, displays an an affable charm. Grabbing your attention when he's dancing on screen, he's got that star quality to him which is so rare to find. ….read more
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