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Band Baaja Baaraat (2010)

Band Baaja Baaraat (2010)

January 2010: Pyaar Impossible! – aka Uday Chopra’s Face Impossible! Predictable geek-gets-girl rom-com plays like Shrek for the Bollywood-lovin’ junta; fails.

May 2010: Badmaash Company – aka Lol, Aditya Chopra, what you smokin’, bro? ‘Honesty is the best policy’ theme stretched thin [all 2.5 hours of it.] The climax: Hero saves the day by marketing defective t-shirts as Bleeding Madras – with Michael Jackson as brand ambassador. Film ends. Madras bleeds. With shame.

August 2010: Lafangey Parindey – aka it’s Rocky. No it’s Black. Wait – it’s Dirty Dancing. Neil Nitin Mukesh channels sadak-chaap, Munnabhai MBBS, etc; fails. Deepika Padukone tries to prove nobody puts Pinky in a corner; fails. Film’s as blind as her. Bland. I mean bland.

Right. So Yash Raj Films has obviously not had a good run this year. Gone are the days of Chandni, of [controversial yet sublime] Lamhe, of DDLJ or Dil To Pagal Hai. Sure, there have been a couple of hits in recent years [Chak De! India and the Dhoom franchise, for example] but it’s mostly gone downhill for Yash Chopra and co. since the new millennium. It was thus with practically zero expectations – and, post I Hate Luv Storys [But Not Really, As My Kitschy Film Will Testify] and Break Ke Baad [Waapis Cinema-Hall Mat Jaana] with mild hatred for the rom-com – that I sat down to watch YRF’s latest offering Band Baaja Baaraat.

The verdict: BBB turns out to be a pleasant surprise, and then some. This is possibly one of the most refreshing, honest, uncomplicated and believable films to come out of the Yash Raj camp in years. Gone are the done-to-death Swiss locales – the film has its heart set in Dilli – inaccessible characters, or narratives that defy logic [I’m looking at you Neal n’ Nikki, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi & Dil Bole Haddipa!] – replaced instead by a film that might be small on budget, but is big on heart.

The Plot: Twenty-something Delhiites – the driven, no-nonsense Shruti [Anushka Sharma] and slacker Bittoo [Ranveer Singh in his debut] – both from a middle-class background, enter the business world together by creating a wedding planning enterprise [‘Shaadi Mubarak’], a venture which proves to be tumultuous: Shruti breaks her own ‘Jisse vyapaar karo, usse kabhi na pyaar karo’ [Don’t mix business with pleasure] rule – and in the midst of the glitz and glam of Delhi weddings, their friendship and business are both tested .. till the film reaches its staple happily-ever-after ending.

In a nutshell: It’s a coming-of-age story, Monsoon Wedding isshtyle.

And of course, you’ve seen or heard of similar themes in recent Bollywood flicks – unreciprocated love leading to ‘Oh-sh*t-I-love-her-and-how-convenient-the-film’s-just-about-to-end’ was seen most recently in I Hate Luv Storys – but what makes this film special is dialogue and presentation. Interwoven with the novel concept of a behind-the-scenes look-see at weddings, the romance works because the dialogues [Habib Faisal] do. The screenplay keeps it simple, and most importantly real. Shruti’s not your average size-zero heroine: fierce, independent, emotional, she’s a woman of substance, and Bittoo, with his Dilli-rooted witticisms – broken English et al, is your average head-scratching, purposeless mundaa turned Alpha male turned Roadside Romeo [product placement!]

Two ordinary protagonists – but never prosaic. It is that girl/boy-next-door persona that makes them so accessible to audiences. Casting newcomer Ranveer Singh and two-film [RNBDJ & Badmaash Company] old Anushka Sharma was a stroke of brilliance; spontaneous, unsophisticated, unorthodox – both actors deliver pitch-perfect performances, and their chemistry is, to borrow a trite phrase, electrifying. Ali Zafar [Tere Bin Laden] faces stiff competition at the Filmfares for best male debut from Bandra boy Ranveer Singh – twice in the same year you’re reminded of Ranbir Kapoor’s stellar work in SLB’s Saawariya.

Anushka’s performance is stuff of true grit: notice an [underplayed] emotional sequence in the second half where both speak candidly of what was a one-night-stand to one, something infinitely more concrete to the other.

Then there’s the presentation itself: the opening number [‘Tarkeebein’] wraps up the differing personas/lifestyles of both characters in a neat three minutes; something – ahem – most Bollywood films take up till intermission to accomplish. The pace is swift; consistently so. There’s little melodrama, lots of mauj-masti, the language is colloquial, and you really get a kick out of watching what goes on in planning a wedding. Yes, it channels the feel-good chick-flick lovers in all of us. And the music’s a winner: you’ll find yourself humming ‘Tarkeebein’ and ‘Ainvayi Ainvayi’ [the latter song and ‘Baari Barsi’ are sure to find their way in the mehndi-DJ’s playlist alongside the Munnis and the Sheilas out there] well after the movie’s finished.

Sure, the last 15 minutes or so tread screenplay-of-convenience territory [actually, the entire subplot to reunite the quarreling duo via loaded-fairy-godmother Mr Sidhwani and his daughter’s multi-crore Rajasthani wedding is bizarre], but at that point, you’re so drawn into the lives of Shruti and Bittoo, you’re ready to forgive [the fact that even though Shahrukh Khan doesn’t show up to shake a leg at said wedding, Bittoo & Shruti manage to engage rabid aunties with a big-scale Bollywood dance number of their own. I’m sorry what?] and forget.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of Band Baaja Baaraat is how it turns out to be the antithesis of what constitutes Bollywood: even in the midst of obligatory song-and-dance numbers, the predictability aspect [Will they get together in the end – wait, am I stupid], the motley gang of so-loyal-it-hurts friends, you relate to the wonderfully refreshing characters and revel in their journey – much as you did with Aditya and Geet in Imtiaz Ali’s wonderful Jab We Met.

At times it seems so non-filmi, you forget it’s fiction. And that’s something debutant director Maneesh Sharma should be proud of.

This over a Golmaal 3 or a No Problem any given Friday – Osman Khalid Butt

Rating – 3.75 out of 5

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Aditya Chopra, Director – Maneesh Sharma, Music Director – Salim Merchant, Sulaiman Merchant, Cast - Anushka Sharma, Ranveer Singh

Drama