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Subtle, sensitive and mature

A scene from Tum Mile

Film: Tum Mile (Hindi)

Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Soha Ali Khan

Director:

Kunal Deshmukh

Turning a natural calamity into a character is a Hollywood staple, and tweaking it to suit the Indian palette is a forte of the Bhatt brothers. This time it is the Mumbai floods of July 2005 that provide this love story its bargaining power at the box office.

Director Kunal Deshmukh, who surprised us with Jannat, has once again showed that with a smart narrative technique and deft camerawork, humungous budgets are not a must to create the impact of tragedy. Add to it competent performances by Emraan Hashmi and Soha Ali Khan and you get a film that touches you. And when it drags, Pritam fills in with some pulsating tunes.

Emraan plays Akshay, a struggling art student who paints the truth and works part-time as a delivery boy to eke out a living. He falls in love with the well-heeled writer Sanjana (Soha Ali Khan) whose heart beats for environmental issues.

All is well till Sanjana in with him. As usual after the initial syrup, their economic divide starts to make its presence felt, but refreshingly Kunal has kept the tone in check.

Despite ample scope, neither character resorts to histrionics. It is all subtle, sensitive and most importantly, mature.

It is another matter that Kunal takes the liberty to set the subject in South Africa without any valid reason apart from its exquisite backdrop.

After the sparring in South Africa, the two meet again in Mumbai on the eve of the disaster and the rest is predictable. Filmed in a studio, the flood scenes, which constitute only a small part of the film, are carried out in a realistic manner but they never evoke the question what’s next? Yes, the metaphor does strike a chord.

Soha was deft as the control freak in Dil Kabaddi and here again she is at ease portraying similar shades. She is shedding inhibitions in more ways than one, but the girl can never be the masses’ lass: she is simply a class apart. In fact, here she helps Emraan get away from his core constituency. You believe her when she says she doesn’t laugh at Akshay’s lowbrow jokes.

Don’t expect a deluge, and you won’t be disappointed.

ANUJ KUMAR

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