The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : The grime behind glamour exposed

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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

The grime behind glamour exposed

Film: Fashion

Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mugdha Godse

Direction: Madhur Bhandarkar

Madhur Bhandarkar is a good story teller. The only problem he has is that he narrates the story in the same way. And that often leads to monotony. And within that monotony, he has the skill to sustain your interest! This director’s much-talked about Fashion is made exactly the way Chandni Bar, Page 3 and Corporate were made and yet it keeps you hooked as the director exposes yet another reality – the grim e behind the glitz and glamour of the fashion world, the sweat behind the sweet success.

As Meghan Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) reaches Mumbai from Chandigarh to make it as the super model and replace the reigning supermodel Shonali (Kangana Ranaut). She does so with a few predictable compromises. It’s about her first revealing dresses for modelling, the first drink, the first puff, the first acceptance and the first rejection, the first under-eye circle, the first fall from the grace and the first realisation.

Then there is everything that you read in tabloids – the gay models and designers, the use of foreign street garments as one’s label, the big brands that break or make a supermodel’s career, the filthy-mouthed, uncouth and illiterate model coordinators, the expensive fashion photographers, the fashion magazine editors and the perfect tailors and drapers who are the actual heroes! It hints at models Gitanjali Nagpal and Carol Gracias too.

And we thought it was Meghna who finally emerges as the winner in both moral and fashion terms, but it is someone else! We loved Priyanka who speaks with her beautiful eyes but ends up messing up with facial expressions.

We shed tears with her when she loses her ramp because of a haughty designer, we cry with her when with tears in her eyes on a dead friend and model, she walks the ramp as the show stopper. And yet, it is Kangana Ranaut who takes the cake as the arrogant show stopper, as the jilted lover, as a drug-addict and a loser on the ramp! Debutante Mugdha Godse, the model-turned actor, thankfully, is an addition to the league of so-few good actors in Bollywood.

Something is missing

But, we miss those fourth-class employees, drivers and servants who brought a dash of humour in Madhur’s other films. And how much we wish he had shown how the aspiring Meghna learns the basics of the fashion world like ramp walking and dress rehearsals. Her progress as the promising model is as fast as slow the climax scene is – so much so that the beautiful song ‘mar Jaanwa’ is somewhere lost in the last scene.

Arjan Bajwa as the struggling model, Kitu Gidwani and Chitrashi Rawat as the model coordinator, Ashwin Mushran as the tailor and Harsh Chaya as the gay designer deserve kudos for their natural acting skills. A few smart cuts on the editing table would have made it length-wise too! It’s clearly a film for the classes, and all of those who would want to have a green room view of the world of fashion.

RSZ

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