The Hindu : New Delhi News : 27 dresses and two spoonfuls of sugar…. Cinema

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 16, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

27 dresses and two spoonfuls of sugar…. Cinema

ZIYA US SALAM

HOLLYWOOD CALLING: This week’s new releases at the cinema, “27 Dresses” (left) and “August Rush” (right), will appeal to select audiences who like an element of emotional and magical realism in their films. There are no new releases from Bollywood this week.

27 DRESSES

(At Satyam, Nehru Place, and other theatres in Delhi and elsewhere)

Romantic comedies are supposed to tickle you with nice, clean jokes and silly sentimentality. A bit mush, a bit hare-brained, they pack niceness in small doses. Of course, there are sequences which remind you that juvenility is not a condition one outgrows with age! Director Anne Fletcher here does all of this with some flair, some tardiness. Where, however, the film stands out is in its faintly sweet end – fortunately, no melodrama – and a little message that seeps in unannounced, almost unintended. But really, “27 Dresses” is the kind of film that would never challenge you to stay abreast of the developments, but reward you for your patience in some measure at the end.

It all starts on predictable lines with Katherine Heigl playing Jane, the bridesmaid, a girl who has played the maid to 27 brides, including relatives, friends, siblings and even acquaintances. But, you guessed it, she yearns for the day when she would be the bride. Anybody who has seen more than a couple of films of this genre would know that being bride here is not a question of if or when, it has an inevitability to it. How the director keeps the viewers involved in the journey makes for occasionally a nice spectacle, and intermittently a jovial experience.

However, it is not just a simple ride to marital harmony here: Jane has a suitor, a journalist who writers under a pen-name. Turns out his writing finds space in her heart and on her soft-board. Only she does not know that the man she takes as obsequious and boring is actually the guy who pens those endearing features she pins up on the board! There are a few twists and turns along as the heroine’s sister turns up and ties the nuptial know before everybody else! That means the good old family wedding dress of the mother – see, like our screen mothers, moms in Hollywood too keep their wedding dresses and jewellery to be passed on to the daughter! – passes on to her with all the attendant emotional strife.

However, the fare never gets too heavy, the handling is always light, the plot barely credible and paper-thin. But the sweep of the events does not allow the viewers to think too hard, to question to much. Result? A film that succeeds despite itself.

Fletcher’s film has many flaws, but some positives too, notably Katherine’s stand-out performance and a fine helping hand from James Marsden, who proves that heroes too can leave an impression in romantic comedies.

And yes, we Indians have another reason to cheer: there is a nice little Hindu wedding with all the glowing shararas and dupattas to go with shimmering cholis. Jane, you see, is the stand-out bridesmaid who doles out her services without favour or fear.

Released here in India this weekend simultaneously with the release in Britain, “27 Dresses” will cheer the uncomplaining.

AUGUST RUSH

(At Spice PVR, Noida, and other theatres)

Some day Hollywood will be able to talk emotion without getting into the saccharine zone. Some day the dream merchants will be able to weave fantasy without seeking too many brownie points from the rational. Some day they will be able to give us a picture that warms the heart without leaving the head with too many questions.

That will be some day, some time. For the moment, though, we have “August Rush”, a film that is like two spoonfuls of sugar. It is a film so sweet as to be barely plausible. There is a nice intermix of heavy emotion, soothing music and magical realism. Where the film stutters is in stretching the credibility thread.

However, for those who seek wish fulfilment in cinema, it is just what the doctor ordered. A slowly unfolding saga of a child who sets out to find the parents he has never met, director Kirsten Sheridan keeps the focus clearly on emotion, giving us a kind of one-hanky drama.

Here an orphan child up for adoption has a gift for music, and it is through his inner calling that he sets out to find his parents in the big, bad world of America where doves come one a million, and sharks fall off the next cupboard like so many ants in a sugar granary.

The young man’s search begins and the love element troughs as the fantasy part takes over. It does not start that way though with cellist Lyla and rock musician Louis meeting at a party and realising that there is a future together. It is not to be, it turns out. Their first night out is the last one. But there is a hitch: pregnant little Lyla ends up in a hospital and the baby goes up for adoption.

He grows up to be a prodigious talent, one who willy-nilly encourages many to try and capitalise on his unique skills: here Robin Williams plays the sugar-coated bitter pill. The kiddo, though, has his heart elsewhere: he wants to find his parents. , and fast. It is a shade too much to expect that the child will bond and recognise people he has never seen in life. But it is a concession the viewers would be ready to grant the director when they see young Freddie Highmore in the title role. He was quite affable in “Finding Neverland” a couple of summers ago, announcing himself as a talent to watch out for. He packs in all the innocent charm once again, adding a pint of maturity to his craft.

Keeping in view the lack of mass appeal in the subject and the star value, the film has been released in a low-key fashion. It is also a delayed release; it was screened abroad last November. Never mind. For those handful who like their cinema silly but sentimental, “August Rush” offers a languid grace with familiar charms. Heart-warming in its own flawed ways.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi