Five reasons why you should watch the movie...
- It depicts life realistically - {WARNING: Too many life fundas to follow} All things do not have fairy tale endings. Everyone houses an element of nostalgia in a corner of their minds, which they either keep thinking about or consciously do not want to be reminded of. People have various dreams but a majority of them fine-tune themselves to reality and customize their life and work with the opportunities around them. Life does sometimes give a feeble second chance, it is left to the individuals to seize the opportunity. There are impulse decisions that people take, which the individual's ego would never agree is wrong, but over time, some just get over it. And as the various characters in the movie keep saying every now and then, "Everyone compromises on something or the other"
- The class and the consistency is amazing- There are various aspects of a typical movie that keep fluctuating over time as the movie progresses, and you start wondering whether something changed in terms of the people involved in making the movie. For once, you just feel that you actually watched one whole coherent movie. You may think its a bit slow. You may think that the colors are a bit rustic. You may feel that the dialogues are short. You may think there are not much expressions from anyone. You may even feel its very predictable. And still you are completely OK with all of it. Because it actually feels like one whole movie. And you really want more of the movie. You want to see the actors reunite. You want to hear the songs. You are so much part of it. For once, you dont care about anything else that belongs to the glossier aspects of film making. And you just feel at the end of it, there should be more such classy Indian movies made.
- A casting coup - There is not a film in recent times where the characters fitted their roles so well. Be it the 4 leading gents, or the ladies, a lot of thought has been given in finding the artists that would bring out the emotions in tune with the overall feel of the movie, yet would not give you the feeling that someone overacted or underplayed their roles. And the camera has captured their moods and their characters excellently. The hidden emotions of Farhan, the miniature expressions of the soap opera star Prachi, the helplessness of Arjun Rampal, the anxiety of his wife, the lighter mood of Purab and the burning nostalgia of Luke. Each and every character has been given due importance in some form or the other. You feel that even the smallest of roles, including Jo's kid and mom, and the tea stall owner have been so well thought out.
- 'Don't get too senti' - Just as KD tells his friends during the movie, the user also need not get too senti at any point of the movie. There is not one moment that goes over the top. There are certainly various instances along the movie where you would feel a slight lump in your throat. But the movie just moves on, without letting the characters, or the viewer get too sentimental. This way, it is so different from other Hindi movies where one of the two has to happen to engage the user.
- The music works like magic - Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy have just eclipsed all else. Letting a new singer (Farhan) sing 5 songs may have been the biggest risk of their career, but its paid off so well. Every car and every radio channel should be soon playing Socha Hai, Sindbad the Sailor and the title track... A guy who has no clue about Rock Music as such would still be able to tap their feet to the songs. They dont even need to understand the lyrics (which should give even more fun apparently). And without hearing the songs beforehand, you would still enjoy them the very first time - thats a rare thing for any song!
Now, to complete the review, lets look at 5 reasons why you should not watch the movie...
- You don't like to watch movies
- You don't like to listen to good music
- You are over the age of 80 and it becomes very difficult to follow anything that goes on around you
- You are so damn lazy that you can't move your butt to the theatre (don't watch this one in a pirated CD, save that for the other 4 - 5 bollywood films that released y'day)
- You are a language fanatic and cannot go and watch Bollywood movies that have English titles
I am finishing up this post with the music of the movie blasting away to glory in the background. Just to sum up, go watch the movie without thinking too much. Do the thinking after watching it...