NO SPARKLERS, ONLY SQUIBS
The ear-splitting noise you heard this Diwali was thanks to three big bombs – at least creatively, if not commercially.
OCT 25, 2009 – THE OPENING SCENES OF PREM SONI'S Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna promise an engaging, ever-so-different romantic melodrama. The marriage of Raina (Kareena Kapoor) and Sameer (Salman Khan) is falling apart – and not because of the stock-clich reasons like infidelity. In this age of the economic downturn, a Bollywood hero, perhaps for the first time, declares that love alone cannot sustain a marriage, and that money is equally (if not more) important. (Sameer should know. He's just been fired after single-handedly bankrupting a stock exchange company in Melbourne.) With a better actor, Sameer might have evolved into a genuinely complex character – a man who really loves his woman, but who will not let that love come in the way of his survival – but even with the minimal shades that Salman imbues him with, there's enough to suggest that, with this hero, this film isn't going to be business as usual.
Sameer's work permit expires. He looks towards greener pastures – Singapore, specifically. The small catch is that he wants to go alone. Raina, therefore, suffers for her husband's sins. There's a refreshingly grownup gravity in Kareena in these stretches, where she's torn between asserting herself and accepting her lot. Sameer has rescued her from an orphanage, he has defied his parents and married her, he's taken care of her every need without her having to eke out a living, so she doesn't want to appear ungrateful – but she cannot see why Sameer won't take her with him. These scenes are staged not elaborately but in a concise, cryptic manner, as if Soni were laying the groundwork for a monumental meditation on the modern-day marriage. We wait for these casual snapshots of Sameer and Raina to accrue into a warts-and-all wedding album.
And then Sohail Khan pees all over the wedding cake. Rarely has there been such a dreadful case of miscasting, and rarely has a film thundered off the rails with such a drastic change of mood and tone. As Akash, Sohail is supposed to function first as shoulder (for Raina to cry on) and later as suitor (completing the inevitable love triangle) – but his scenes play out as if he were starring in a leering bedroom farce. Soni loses all control over his material, and we're treated to an endless parade of hot-cold emotional mashups. (Sameer returns to claim Raina; cut to Akash's friend banging on the bathroom door because he really, really needs to go.) Even the so-called crisis – who will Raina choose: (a) the man who abandoned her, or (b) the man-child who saved her? – is a no-brainer. You keep wishing for an option (c), where Raina dumps both these losers and waltzes off into a glorious sunset.
Health and Fitness
101