No heroine and still a hit - An article

Some of the bigger Bollywood successes this season have been films without glam actresses or romance. Anyone missing that?

ON one hand there are films like Apoorva Lakhia's Ek Ajnabee and Shootout at Lokhandwala and Shamit Amin's Chak De! India , in which the female leads are strongly etched characters, not necessarily with romantic shades.

On the other, there's a line-up that includes Indra Kumar's Dhamaal and Raj Kumar Gupta's debut film Amir, which have no female lead at all. All these films have enjoyed a surprising measure of box office success. So are audiences enjoying films without heroines, rather than movies in which they are just hunk accessories?

According to model Ritu Majumdar, "Bollywood has always been male-dominated. Very few women-oriented films have done well at the box office. Today, it's become more script-based. While Chak De! needed tough gals rather than typical heroines, Dhamaal didn't need a glam quotient at all. I'm sure audiences are bored of seeing the girl next door cry and dance throughout the film and do little else."

It's a refreshing change, but it may be too soon to say if this will work in the long run, feels actress Arya Menon, who was part of the Chak De! team. "Till the film was released, people kept asking me, 'So which one of you is Shah Rukh's love interest?' They wouldn't believe me when I said no one," she says. Arya is, however, all for films with heroines. "When you go to a movie, you need to relate to some character. How can you expect a woman to relate to a superhero?" she asks.

But trade analyst Taran Adarsh sees it as a positive trend for the industry. "It's good to see filmmakers sticking to the original script and not introducing please-all aspects like songs and heroines; they are casting as per the demands of the script. It's perfectly okay if a film doesn't have a heroine or love angle, as long as we are being told a good story," he says.

Filmmakers have their own reasons for choosing these subjects. Apoorva Lakhia says he is attracted to non-romantic scripts. "I like action-filled stories and am very true to my script. If I cast women, then they are strong, independent individuals, who add to the script," he says. According to Apoorva, even when the first edit of Shootout was out, it was without songs. "When we decided to add the track, Eh Ganpath , it was because we felt it would show the human side of the gangsters but also make the otherwise heavy-duty film a little lighter. Even while shooting for Ek Ajnabee , we introduced a love angle for Arjun Rampal's character, but it never made it past the editing table," he says.

And this is better than showing women as mere props. "Of course, if you are making a romantic film, say with a Shah Rukh Khan or a Salman, you need a strong female lead like a Kajol or a Katrina Kaif to support them. And economics play a role as well. Actors like Sushmita Sen and Lara Dutta add value to the film. But if you are dealing with issues larger than love, a glam doll will only take away from the script," adds Apoorva.