Need A New Take On This One

The one thought that constantly played on my mind, and made me mentally squirm, is how morose ‘Take One’ is. The heroine, top actress Doel Mitra, mopes about most of the time, smoking and drinking, her face drained of all colour and emotions other than a world-weariness that is as irritating as her messy hair-do.

It’s true that Doel is under siege after shedding her clothes and inhibitions (for an international movie) in a regional film industry that still swears by its sarees and salwar-kameezes, though artfully worn/tailored to show skin. She may even be booted out of a film she is making on the Ramayana, where she plays that paragon of pure womanhood, Sita. And her actor boyfriend is two-timing her with a starlet.

But none of this can be an excuse for the gloominess of the movie, mercifully relieved by the warm mother-daughter episodes and scenes where the Ramayana movie’s director, played by Arindam Sil, badmouths Doel. Thank God for the foul-mouthed humour.

The randomness of the narrative structure is another irritant. People seem to meet up in street corners very conveniently so that a certain plot point can be achieved. For instance, the journalist (Rahul Banerjee) bumping into his ex-wife and her fiancé so that the journo can know she is going to remarry. Bizarre!

This is the weakest point of Take One, that there is no natural unfolding of the narrative, no clear continuity. It is episodic in nature, a put-togetherness that doesn’t go with the story. An episodic narrative may have its virtues but this story calls for a conventional, straight storytelling.

The entire effort at intercutting Doel’s travails with Sita’s from the Ramayana movie appears a waste. Do you really need to underline the point when it has been spelled out in words at the beginning of the film?

That’s another failure of Take One – its artifice. Shorn of the forced narrative structure, the Ramayana movie footage and Doel’s incessant moping, Mainak Bhaumik’s fifth Bengali feature would have made for a good watch.

The film’s high point is Doel’s (Swastika Mukherjee) family time with her daughter (real-life daughter Anwesha). There is no artifice here, so the warm relationship steals your heart. Swastika is also impressive in her drunken confrontation with the starlet though it is stagey. One still feels little empathy for Doel because there is almost no backstory to her life.

Rahul Banerjee is convincing in his short screen time though his role is stereotypical. Arindam Sil provides the humour. Wish there was more of him.

Mainak does raise a pertinent point – whether an audience (including media and film industry insiders) has any right at all to judge an actor/actress who may shatter stereotypes in pursuit of a dream role. Only, the interesting subject needed a storytelling that would have been a nice fit. Better luck next time.

 
For all that, Take One is worth a watch, if only for the mother-daughter scenes and the foul-mouthed humour. It scores a 6 on 10. 

Take A Turn Down This Highway

Alia Bhatt has hit the ball out of the park. If Highway is a cricket match, then she has hit sixer after sixer, ball after ball, over after over for the entire match. She is a champion, all right, a champion actress.

The Baby Bhatt’s maturity of performance should put to shame all the number 1s, 2s, 3s and whatever in Bollywood. They should realize they are nothing but pretenders if they can’t top what this very young, newly minted actress has achieved in Highway.

After the patently unreal and unIndian Rockstar, Imtiaz Ali has changed gears and vroomed down a very Indian highway, and with splendid results. Unlike Rockstar, which never struck a true note despite the engaging first half, Highway never loses its way in a slice of the maze of Indianness that is sought to be captured.

The first half is near flawless but the second half, though uneven, rides high on Alia’s astounding performance that seems to go from strength to strength. Be it crying, loving, teasing, shouting, singing or dancing, this slip of a girl never fails to ring true. The sincerity of her performance is a rarity in Hindi cinema, perhaps not seen since Smita Patil’s outburst in Sadgati or Shabana Azmi’s excoriation in Ankur. This girl will be an able successor to these illustrious actresses if she picks her films with care in the future. 

What’s more, Alia has also sung (Sooha Saha) with admirable efficacy – for the first time. This is a voice full of promise. Surprisingly, her father Mahesh Bhatt was not aware Alia could sing. 

Talking of songs, A R Rahman’s music for Highway is, like Rockstar, a mixed bag. Patakha Guddi by the very young Nooran sisters is clearly the best of the lot. Sooha Saha by Alia is a charming lullaby but by no means a cakewalk. Maahi Ve by Rahman himself is an uplifting song but sadly comes at the very end of the film.

Imtiaz’s return to form, which appeared to be on the wane after Jab We Met (2007), is evident in the very realistic first 15-20 minutes. The wedding video beginning is a deft touch, which is briefly but unnecessarily revived later in the film. He does fall back on his favourite plot point of an ailing heroine here too (remember Geet and Heer). This is clearly an emerging pattern. 

Highway has no real story to tell but the smooth narrative, the engaging vignettes of semi-urban India, and the powerful performances catapult this road movie into a different category.

Randeep Hooda, a much underestimated actor, intelligently lets his performance be the perfect foil to Alia’s brilliance, never once trying to steal her limelight. We need to see more of this underused actor.

But make no mistake. Despite Hooda, Rahman, a visually unusual India and Imtiaz’s new-found realism, this is Alia Bhatt’s movie. Highway would not be the same if anyone else had played Veera.

This movie justly deserves a 9 on 10. If you haven’t watched Highway yet, shame on you.