Karan Johar 2006 India
Starring: Shah Rukh Khan, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta, Abhishek Bachchan, Amitabh Bachchan, Kirron Kher, Ahsaas Channa
One of the greatest things about veteran actors is their ability to shock you by doing something completely out of character. So it is in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna when the great Amitabh Bachchan turns up in a role a million miles away from any of his already diverse past work as an elderly father whose main interests are drinking, whoring and talking about arses. His son Abhishek (playing his son in the film as well) also features and the first words out of his mouth are "Oh, shit!", uttered when he realises he's forgotten his own wedding. They call each other 'dude'. This may not seem all that unusual to Western audiences but in Bollywood it seems that however many murders and affairs there are swearing is still pretty much frowned upon and Amitabh in particular is best known for his 'angry young man' phase and dramatic performances. Joining them are Preity Zinta as workaholic editor Rhea, Kirron Kher as her fast-talking mother-in-law Kamaljit, Ahsaas Channa (actually a girl but playing a boy) as Rhea's undervalued child Arjun, Rani Mukerji as orphan school teacher Maya and Shah Rukh Khan (known to his many fans as SRK) as plain-speaking crocked footballer Dev (the latter two are in love with each other despite both being married to other people) and all are immensely likeable and very good in their roles which is lucky because the rest of cast are roundly awful - there's an American nurse who's particularly dire. The script doesn't help them much either, starting out as an unbelievably lightweight screwball comedy and veering between funny, obvious and absolutely atrocious before changing tack completely. With that in mind it's pretty evident that brevity should be their friend but, perhaps due to Bollywood convention, the film runs in excess of three hours. The almost entirely straight second half is excellent and the film doesn't exactly drag but the silliness of the first half diminishes the considerable power of the romantic drama in the second (which is already relatively ill-fitting due to the sudden change of genre). Likewise when Abhishek's cuckolded Rishi faints early on it's amusing and actually quite a novelty but when he repeats it later on (complete with banal 'comic' sound effects) it loses any charm it held. There are some genuinely funny moments, some tremendous acting and some interesting twists - especially Dev, after a chance meeting in the opening minutes, convincing Maya to go through with her marriage with Rishi only to spend the rest of the film trying to persuade her to end it - but the extraordinary cast are overall given very little to work with. It sounds like a slightly naïve thing to say about mainstream Bollywood but the film could do with a little restraint and a director with a better understanding of genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment