Polygamy disclaimer. 1946 Husnabad (that I almost read as Husband due to the disclaimer hangover). Serious characters dressed to kill but wearing morose expressions, glare into the camera to establish riches and class. You have a cute girl ( Alia) leading the cameraman running behind her, holding up her designer dress in the now established introduction sequence of a free soul who traipses with gay abandon She even lies down on the ground at the end with soil in her hair leaving me wondering how she is going to wash it off. That is answered later in the movie when she refers to LUX. But not for long, the character for some inexplicable reason agrees to be the second wife to the son of a wealthy man whose current wife is on a death roll. Such an understanding wife who arranges for her husband to have a seamless married life.
At this point apparently the producers Fox Studios jumped in, shocked , in contrast to their brief, a family emotional drama unravelling. What about the 1947 period drama. The makers shift gear and establish a weak plot about a journalistic enterprise during the partition at cross roads with the majority community locally.
Fashionista Manish Malhotra sensing opportunity decides to hold a festival of his haute couture. And man does he do it in style. The attires on display are to be seen to be believed with their overwhelming but beautiful beige /golden /pink for the ladies and stately cream and black for the gentleman. So the soap loving second wife was just fooling the audience and her husband as she has all intentions of falling in love with a six pack bare chested iron smith who keeps banging away at metal so that the muscles pop out just right.
Emotional build up for this man. Oh yes he is the illegitimate son of the courtesan who lives in a mansion that can put any palace to shame on the other side of the town. He wears his illegitimacy like a badge.
Fox studios again comes in politely at this juncture and politely reminds that they had put in money for a period drama on the partition. So the characters all rush into office buildings and snort at each other suitably to ensure sufficient animosity and build up for a possible showdown during the partition. They look over the shoulder. Fox is back to their other ventures in Hollywood and therefore they get back to their dance and drama.
Ah yes since there is a free hand to fashion designers, the furniture and art designers decide not to be left behind and actually color coordinate the dresses of the artistes and create MDF sets matching color for color. Brilliant piece of art direction undoubtedly. But partition?
Oh yes so the six pack locksmith decides to pursue the sneaky second wife and in between colorful songs manages to lure her in. Not sure if she did that by design as well considering that her husband was still holding the hand of his sick first wife. (Was he pretending knowing well she was to pop off soon)?
Frustrated that you are not understanding the story well. Ok let me start again
Assume that you have a director who is super impressed with SLBHansali and has watched 52 re runs of Blue Saawariya. Next he watches Lootera or maybe even Parineeta. Now he changes blue to Golden. He decides that has had enough with Switzerland and tries to merge Rajasthan with Kerala and adds in a snow capped mountain for good measure. He creates a town where everyone’s prime occupation seems to be to loiter on the streets and break into a flash mob dance. There is absolutely no effort at character building or basic attempts to create a back story for the characters.
Yes the Art director/costume director/cinematographer have a free hand. Look out for that introductory scene where the two main protagonists meet. It was like one was high on … well just goodness. The Six pack guy actually battles a digital bull gone bonkers on digital steroids. Bahubali meets Saawariya too.
And then those opulent sets of the courtesan where the art directors failed to move a large chandelier to the roof and decided to leave it at ground level. Large MdF doors open magically every time a lead character wants to stomp out. Those large earrings. Counted 222 of them. Kept me occupied when the dialogues got insipid.
Finally Fox gets them to the dramatic violent ending. But not before Madhuri who has been belting out soulful monologues says “ enough is enough’ and insists on doing a full strong number in Kathak.
Rickety wooden trains puffs in. People are running from the town to escape. The strange part is the husband and wife are running from a mob and the husband jumps on the train first leaving the wife to fend for herself.
They spent INR800Mn on what I believe must be costumes/art/earrings. My heart goes out to that brilliantly evolving Aalia who pirouttes her way into our appreciation portals. Varun is sincere. Madhuri and Sanjay look lost. Aditya looks like he desperately wants to break into his Ashiqui 2 role and almost does that when he lays his hands on a bottle. Average acting all around.
At one point one of the character says “ feke hue cheez sad jaate hain”. I thought they were going to do a plug on plastic pollution. But no luck. They just come out with another pair of earring and a beige embroidered dress.
Feel for Fox as they figure out this investment from a production house that usually gives reasonably reliable stuff. A Kalank to good cinema.
1 ½ star
