Sensibility, sensitivity & sense -- Just Married
DILEMMA: Just Married.
Just Married
Cast: Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol, Sathish Kaushik, Kirron Kher, Perizaad Zorabian
Director: Meghna Gulzar
Genre: Romance
Storyline: A newly-wed couple deals with honeymoon blues after an `arranged marriage.'
Bottomline: Sensitive all right, but just short of engaging.
What is otherwise a pretty watchable film turns annoying when Meghna Gulzar loses her balance between realism and willing suspension of disbelief. Though she does present a sensitive, realistic take on newly wed couples on their honeymoon, the filmmaker betrays her sensibility by forcing a rather filmy, gravity-defying cliff-hanger on her multiplex audience.
And, it is not just the climax that is symptomatic of the director's struggle to marry two sensibilities the urban and the small-town. May be because her central characters are the epitome of modern day sensitivity and small town conservatism respectively.
The foreign-bred Abhay (Fardeen Khan) understands his bride's predicament. He knows his small town-raised wife Ritika (Esha Deol) needs time before she would let him touch her. He's willing to wait. She's happy that he understands her. So far, so good!
To her credit, Meghna Gulzar fleshes out the first act with ease, punctuating the interludes of the newly married couple with a breezy song or two (Pritam does full justice to Gulzar's lyrics). Also during the first act, she also introduces us to the other couples on a holiday, and though this juxtaposition initially seems like a good idea, the sub-plots slow down the central one. By the time we get through with the second and get into the third, the bride does test our patience. Or maybe it's the actress.
Inevitable comparison
To be fair to her, though miscast, Esha Deol delivers a well-nuanced career-best and Fardeen Khan banks on natural charm with restrained underplaying. Of the other four couples, Satish Shah and Kirron Kher are adorable with their everyday quibbles. Perizaad Zorabian is once again typecast as the free-spirited girl opposite the hunky Bikram Saluja, while Sadia Siddique and Mukul Dev as the platonic childhood sweethearts manage to bring a smile to your face. Raj Zutshi buries himself under Lonely Planet for most of his screen time as his companion rattles off lines in fake American accent. Though you connect to some of these characters instantly, the sub-plots here, compared to `Honeymoon Travels,' hardly spring any surprises.
If `Honeymoon Travels' is a macro-level look at relationships, `Just Married' is an intimate look at the space shared between man and woman in marriage. Comparisons are inevitable not only because of the timing of release of these two films but also because of the sensitivity lent to the plot by two different woman filmmakers. The difference emerges in the sensibility employed. If Reema's cinema branches out of Farhan Akhtar's, Meghna's seems like an ode to Sooraj Barjatya.
SUDHISH KAMATH
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