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Not a call from the heart
By ZIYA US SALAM
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Want to watch "Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa"? Listen to your head. Therein lies wisdom, sanity.
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DIL NE JISE APNA KAHAA
(At Delite and other Delhi theatres)
HE IS the talisman of survivors. His ebullience eroded by public disquiet over personal turmoil, his arrogance bridled by adversity, he is no longer callow or young, hopefully no longer violent or intimidating. He is no more a boy in a man's world: he has come back from the brink with Tere Naam, and managed a toothy grin with Mujhse Shaadi Karoge. A bit longer in the tooth now, a bit shorter on hair, gone is the swagger, in is his sophistry as manifest in Phir Milenge. He abjures the past, and is fast turning into an alchemist in what is practically his second innings in Bollywood.
Welcome brand new Salman Khan, the man who copped it on the chin when the things got tough, then gave life as good as he got. Not quite under the setting sun yet, he is getting there. And along the way, is making some quite interesting stopovers, sending the box office registers jingling. Here he adopts the timeless adage of charity beginning at home by lending a helping hand to his brother-in-law Atull Agnihotri.
Atull turns a director for the simple reason that he failed as an actor. And Salman seems to have done Dil Ne Jise Apna Kahaa simply because his heart dictated. How one wishes he had kept the personal and the professional life separate! How one wishes he had not fallen for the beseeches of Atull whose acting career seems akin to his directorial venture - wistful, sad, full of grief. But that is the price one has to pay for not having the heart in the right place in an industry which heartlessly raises new heroes every Friday, only to bring them down the following one!
Bhumika blooms
This film opens as the saga of a lovey-dovey couple - Salman is a successful advertisement professional who plays with words, Preity is a doctor who plays with her patients. And in between they manage to find enough time to play with each other. But then life is not all about play - and when reality strikes, heart is left asunder. Out goes Preity with all her rehearsed charm, her playful eyes.
In comes Bhumika, still so fresh, still so vulnerable that even the most beastly of men would turn chivalrous. Now here is a woman supposed to be caressed with silks, a woman whose feet are to appeased with dew-fresh grass, and face with rose petals. Her eyes still have that invitingly nascent hope, her lips that nervous anticipation. As a girl who gets a new lease of life following a heart transplant she does enough to appeal to viewers. She may not have a great figure - revealed by that cruel seashore breeze - but in her face lies a fortune. And she does a good job of using it to express emotions, myriad and magical. Hers is the reassuring presence in what is otherwise a soppy, soul-less drama with so many tears that one would sigh at the first opportunity of relief.
If Salman is man enough to cry on screen, Preity leaves on a similar note, and poor Bhumika who enters the film as a patient, is expected to do more of the same! What a shame! So much wallowing, so much grief, such a luxury in today's world when everybody wants to move on. Not so Atull or his film. The film gets stuck in the grief mode, never moves to the brighter side. The songs don't help, the uni-dimensional characters only a little. And stereotypes prevail. Which is sad. Sadder still is the fact that this sundown film comes in what is a sunshine phase of Salman's career.
ELLA ENCHANTED
(At PVR Saket and other Delhi theatres)
CINDERELLA FADED from your memory? Well, here comes a chance to dust off the cobwebs, overcome the sieve of memory, take a trip down to the age when fairytales used to hold you in thrall. Time to go back to the tales of your grandmother, those endless stories of birds and beasts, beauty queens and charming princes. This week provides plenty of opportunity with Ella Enchanted and Tooth vying for cinemagoers' time and money.
Based on Gail Carson Levine's novel, Ella Enchanted is the kind of escapist cinema that makes children in the single digit years smile, and adults vanish from the place. It is the story of a girl under a spell of obedience. That, youngsters are told, is a nice attribute to possess, but not here as the girl grows up a prisoner of others around her. Complicating the issue are her stepsisters - remember Cinderella now? - and the fondness for a man.
We have Anne Hathway in the lead. She looks so pleasant, so fresh that you wish she were given a better plot than the one churned out in this Tommy O'Haver film. Watch it if you must for this lady with such winsome smiles, pleasing manners, sweet talk. Otherwise, stay home.
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