Karnataka   

Lacklustre and devoid of ‘magic’

Children’s nawab: Saif and the children in ‘Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic’

Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic (Hindi)

Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukherjee

Director: Kunal Kohli

On our shoulders reside two guardian angels. One notes down all the good deeds we do. The other jots down all evil. Anybody who ignores the good, slips into a web of lies and deceit, breaks relationships, tears a child away from her father, a man away from his mother. For such people, hell is a torment in-waiting. Anybody who tends to the old, forgives those around, brings people together…well she is an angel! A bit moralistic? Yes, but it is such dashes of morals that save Kunal Kohli’s “Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic” from being an insufferable compilation of other kid flicks with surprise as the missing element. The film is replete with predictables: naughty children in a mansion — these days even untimely demise of parents fails to snatch away the riches in Hindi cinema! — orphaned with the death of parents in an accident, an angry guardian; and of course, a fairy who rides a pink cycle, wears white, floats over clouds and gets everything right for them.

“Thoda Pyaar…” is a fantasy film, basically, a dream vehicle for the young and impressionable. The director spins a story out of little prayers, and fond hopes of the innocent, hoping to laugh all the way to the bank with a few tender scenes, and many stereotypes.

Kohli’s is a middling essay. It half disappoints, half delights. There are moments when dew-fresh Rani Mukerji enters as a fairy that you smile, and life does seem to hold hope in its lap. She is fresh as the morning sunshine, radiant as the moon. After quite sometime, Rani appears fetching, a woman fit to be pampered with a thousand pearls and a million rose buds. Almost every heroine worth her pancake has played a fairy in her career, now is her turn. No more. Much like Saif who plays a tyro who, again predictably, cannot stand the sight of kids he is supposed to bring up after being responsible for their parents death.

Again, no guesses needed, he undergoes a change of heart and becomes a lovey-dovey guardian, who can risk his millions, but not tolerate a slap to his kids! How the metamorphosis takes place? Well, Kohli does not take the viewers into confidence.

He says, and we are expected to believe. We believe the four kids, each of whom is likeable without really leaving a lasting impression.

Yet again, Kohli goes by the popular stereotypes: so he inserts an adopted Sikh kid in the family with an eye at the turnstiles, and a smile towards the bank! Amidst all this, one occasionally gets involved with the story of an angel out to protect the kids from their uncaring guardian. However, there are periods in the film when one wishes that the director had laid his hands on a better script, the detailing was better, and Kohli could do away with his song-and-dance routine. The candy floss look, the designer sets, all look so jaded. If he had cut out the flab, added a better dash of emotion, and not packaged everything in such a transparent manner, the dream film with a customary dash of romance could have held interest throughout. The way “Thoda Pyaar Thoda Magic” evolves, it comes across as an average family film for an undemanding section of the audience.

For those who ask uneasy questions of novelty, professional treatment and at least a semblance of a script, it is disappointing.

ZUS

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