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Kismat fails to hold you in thrall

A still from the film Kismat Konnection

Film: Kismat Konnection Cast: Shahid Kapoor, Vidya Balan Direction: Aziz Mirza

More than a couple of summers have lapsed since one predicted that in the future accessible to the naked eye the enviably gifted Vidya Balan would be courted by a million, with cinemagoers following her like Satan, the one fallen angel who disobeyed the Almighty. She had it all: Pradip Sarkar’s gift-wrapped “Parineeta” for her first film, a face that could launch a million fantasies, and a rare ability to use her eyes for expressing an emotion her lips wo n’t be impudent enough to articulate. Alas! Not to be. In the proverbial slip between the cup and the lip, the lady, still fit to be showered with adoration, has lost her way. There have been barbs about her taste – the lack of it – there have been whispers about her weight.

If Aziz Mirza’s partially delightful “Kismat Konnection” is an indication, the tongues shall continue to wag, and Lolita of “Parineeta” shall have to find a more familiar route to cinemagoers’ hearts. Here she plays an everyday girl Priya, settled in Toronto – now even Mirza Sahab finds his characters away from the Hindi heartland – a part-time activist, who must first squabble, then share sweet nothings with the hero – played with rehearsed ease by Shahid Kapoor. Short hair, a mix of Indian and western dresses, and a lingering smile, however, fail to hide the obvious: the lady needs to shed weight. Urgently. She has a figure that would have been acceptable more than 20 years ago. Then, the camera used to shower many compliments on the heroine’s face, and many made a fortune out of it. Not so now. A heroine has to emote with her body in commercial cinema today.

And for almost no fault of hers, Balan looks a shade old opposite the perennial boy Shahid. Talking of the old, Mirza’s story is old too: the boy and girl meet, fight, fall in love, he has no millions, another guy has….yawn. Where he saves the film is with his familiar values: in a routine story he is able to talk of the crisis of development where some are in danger of being left out, where every new mall means a challenge to existence for the old and the have-nots. It is a world where egalitarianism is a surplus virtue.

Mirza is able to weave all the elements of social currency without losing that feather light touch. Never once is he didactic. Never once does the film lose its frothy feeling. Occasionally though, the proceedings tend to lag, only rarely does a hint of melodrama show.

But there is one consistent sore point: the music. It is one assembled score that does nobody any favours. Result? A film that has several sweet moments, a film that never gets too bitter, never too preachy. Yet a film that does not quite hold you in thrall. A bit like kismat, as the brave-hearts would say!

ZIYA US SALAM

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