2 States - 1 State Short!

2 STATES – 1 State short!

Producers: - Karan Johar/Sajid Nadiadwala

Cast:-Arjun Kapoor as Krish, Alia Bhatt as Ananya, Amrita Singh as Kavita Malhotra, Revathy as Radha Swaminathan, Ronit Roy as Vikram Malhotra, Shivkumar Subramaniam as Shiv Swaminatahan

& Crew:-Direction/SP- Abishek Varman, Story - Chetan Bhagat, Dialogue-Hussain Dalal, D.O.P - Binod Pradhan, Edit - Namrata Rao, Music - Shankar Mahadevan/Loy Mendonsa/Ehsaan Noorani, B.G Score - Parik/Tubby, Costumes- Natascha Charak/Manish Malhotra/Nikita Raheja/Shiraj Siddique

Track list:- 1."Offo" - Aditi Singh Sharma/Amitabh Bhattacharaya 2. "Locha -E-Ulfat" - Benny Dayal 3. "Mast Margan" - Arjit Singh/Chinmayi Sripada 4. "Iski Uski" - Akriti Kakkar/Shahid Mallya/Shankar Mahadevan 5. "Chaandaniya" - K.Mohan/Yashita Sharma 6. "Hullaa Re"- Shankar Mahadevan/Siddarth Mahadevan/Rasika Shekar 

Total duration of songs: - 25.29 mins.

Premise:- A story about a romantic journey of a culturally opposite couple - Krish Malhotra and Ananya Swaminathan. They meet at the IIM-Ahmadabad College and during the program they fall in love. Complications arise after the program comes to an end and they decide to get married. Krish and Ananya belong to two different states of India. Krish, a North Indian Punjabi boy from Delhi, and Ananya, a Tamilian Brahmin from Chennai. They take a conscious decision; they won't get married until their parents agree. Everything goes downhill when the parents meet. There is a cultural clash and the parents oppose the wedding. To convert their love story into a love marriage, the couple faces a tough battle in front of them. It is easy to fight and rebel, but much harder to convince. Will Krish and Ananya's love for each other sustain the battles? Will they manage to convince their parents and make it to their wedding? – A UTV write up and cut & paste job nothing more!

The story, backdrop and setting (Screen play) 

The Tamil half of the film:- The film starts with Arjun Kapoor in a monologue about his life in general and his love story with Aliya Bhat. Then the story moves to the IIM canteen where Aliya is fighting with the chief cook about the quality of Sambar. The director uses this scene to 1, Introduce the two protagonists of the story & 2. That one of them is a Tamilian and the other one is a Punjabi. Neat but rather clichéd. Then we move on to the next scene as the director establishes that Aliya is a spunky Brahmin girl who loves chicken! Once the Chemistry between the two is established their initial differences blossom into the usual love affair. There were a couple of classroom scenes which never has a follow up sequence for e.g. the classroom scene where the professor pulls up Aliya and makes her look dumb in spite of her being good in that subject. The director follows it with a scene in which Arjun turns up to tutor Aliya to bring them closer. Once again rather clichéd. After their love is established where Aliya ends up making the first move by kissing a diffident and confused Arjun. Their love "affair" progresses with a few scenes visualizing their emotional bonding but then again what follows is probably far too many scenes of jumping into bed at the click of a finger or even less. Here a certain amount of guarded love making would have helped like usage of condom, anti pregnancy pills or even better a false test of pregnancy would have aided the premise far better. Finally once they both commit on a long term relationship which may end up in both of them getting married provided of course if both set of parents consent. We have been touching on all this from the days of "Ek duje ke liye" While in E.D.K.L, Balachander created some good emotional scenes here in this half of the first half the director was found wanting. But to give the devil it’s due the movie picks up from here on. The moment Arjun lands up in Chennai (gets a job in YES bank) in hot pursuit of his lady love Aliya who by the way gets a job in Sunsilk (I thought the company is known as Unilever) Anyway how convenient! The better part of this half is the Arjun's Tamilian connect portions that has some good moments. The efforts taken by Arjun to get Aliya's parents to consent is touching and times hilarious especially the power point presentation & spending quality "booze" time with Aliya's dad. Getting Aliya's mother to sing in a concert. His description of Aliya's house during the monologue definitely brought a smile. Arjun presenting rings to the entire family & seeking acceptance was well conceived and did touch an emotional chord. This part felt good. 

Now to the point which fell well short is the intro to Chennai. Come on! I am resident of Chennai and more particularly of Mylapore for over 5 decades and have never come across a street like the one Aliya and her family live in. A Mylapore Street house so serene and peaceful looks more like a street in neighboring Pondy! What's lost here is the true ambiance of Mylapore. Secondly the way Chennai was visualized was even more bizarre it starts with visuals of the proverbial auto drive and moves on to the Marina beach so far so good. The director then loses his way around Chennai a street filled with locals dressed as if they are on the way to act in a drama or a fancy dress competition! Women dressed in Kanchipuram silk saris having fun in the blazing sun at the Marina beach? Come on year! "Director Sahib Yeh kya tamasha dikha rahe ho yaar!" You are doing a film with a Chennai back drop you should have applied more thought into it! Aliya mentioned in an interview that she is not an "Aiyo" girl which appears to be the overall North Indian template of the "Arrey Yaar Paavam" version of Chennai. There are some lovely locations in Chennai which would have served the film better. Once again the director skirted around the problem of casting a non Tamil speaking heroine by making her speak a few ‘Learn-Tamil-in-30-days’ words like "Amma/Appa/Seri etc". Somehow Aliya's bonding with her parents and especially brother look half done.

The "Punjabi" second half now it is the turn of Aliya to impress Arjun's parents and get their unequivocal consent. Here the director has quite effectively shown the contrasting cultures and behavior of both the families. Arjun's mother is a brash Punjabi lady who wants the best for her son more because her husband, a retired Army officer, hits the bottle more often than not and for some unexplained reason at least at this point in time keeps abusing his wife and does not communicate with his son. Though later the reason for his strange behavior is revealed it is not entirely convincing in fact appears rather contrived. The mother’s possessiveness towards her only son explains her very abrasive behavior towards Aliya and her parents and is quite effectively characterized by the director. The auto ride from the airport of the mother and son. The non vegetarian vs. the vegetarian quips by the mother. Her conservative attitude of tolerating her husband’s abusive behavior. Her middle class mentality in aspiring for wealth etc are a few such examples. From this point onwards the film felt protracted and was stretched beyond operable limits in the sense even after one set of the parents consent , Arjun's dad, a mere spectator, and Arjun's mom, on the verge of giving in, the director starts overdoing things a bit. The vacation trip arranged by Arjun and Aliya was in my opinion a lag and unnecessary. This was simply done to create a separation and lacked conviction. Even the earlier cooking part was in a sense better as it brought out the mom's queen of her kitchen attitude. 

What failed in the Punjabi half was the big & lavish Punjabi wedding bit and the "Mei Hoon Rajini" role played by Aliya to reform Duke and save Minty's life. Here the small car dowry bit was tame and insipid to say the least. This was preachy and lacked content and was a drag. The Psychiatry bit too was half fulfilling. The director once again failed in the follow up. Arjun and Aliya's professional side never seemed to get affected which is again a minus. Even the ambience of Gujarat etc was not fully visualized. The repeated breaking of the whiskey glass never touched any emotive chord.   

& the Climax the big fat South - North India wedding with the shore temple back drop was the highlight of this half. To be honest it reminded me of my daughter's wedding at a similar place so it probably touched a chord somewhere in the back of my mind. The appearance or the re appearance of the dad in their lives was a nice touch.  

Acting: - 

Arjun Kapoor as Krish is quite effective initially as a semi geek/hulk kind of portrayal. His portrayal of a Punjabi boy is apt with right dosage of underplay. His chemistry with Aliya is evident throughout the film. In the making out scenes he proves his mettle. After all at his age who wouldn't! The scenes with his mom especially those where he is torn between the mother and Aliya are effective. His respect/hate/love relationship with his dad essayed well. On the whole this movie a big plus for Arjun.

Aliya Bhat as Ananya, a fairly entertaining portrayal. She knows which part of her anatomy looks good and makes effective use of those. She scores with her intensity in the more intimate scenes with Arjun and rather poorly in the emotive scenes with her family. She carries herself well in both the Indian as well as western attire. Her smile and dimple a plus. She is far from convincing as a Tamil speaking girl. I feel someone like Trisha would have served this film better. 

Amrita Singh as Kavita Malhotra In one line - A great job. She fits the role to a tee. A very good all-round performance indeed.

Revathy as Radha Swaminathan What can one say about this wonderful actor. To simply put it "An ageless wonder"! Very few actors in Indian cinema could have underplayed this role better than Revathy. Let's leave it at that.

Ronit Roy as Vikram Malhotra a subdued performance laced with dignity and weakness in character. 

Shivkumar Subramaniam as Shiv Swaminatahan He is the surprise packet in this film. He has lived the character and the director should be applauded for letting him do so or extracting such a performance.

The rest:-The aunt and the rest stood up to be counted.

Camera:- Binod Pradhan Good work. Most shots are a visual treat and very effective. Camera angles and lighting add flavor to the story telling. On the whole very promising work.

Music: - Shankar Mahadevan/Loy Mendonsa/Ehsaan Noorani, B.G Score - Parik/Tubby, Costumes- Natascha Charak/Manish Malhotra/Nikita Raheja/Shiraj Siddique - B.G work subtle and melts into the background as required. Couple of tracks are fairly good especially the vibrant Punjabi ones and the soft Tamil/Hindi track sung by Revathy.

Art: - Kshamata Sachin/Gaurav deserves to be complimented. The IIM back drop/Arjun's apartment and more particularly his room needs a mention. Some of the locations like the library/canteen/the psychiatric consult room etc aptly worked on.

Choreo: - Remo standard fare. Fits the billing though the Bharthanatyam steps of Aliya were out of place.

Edit: - Namrata Rao on the whole effective cuts but at least 5 mins in the first half and 10 in the 2nd half would have helped the film move faster.

Costumes- Natascha Charak/Manish Malhotra/Nikita Raheja/Shiraj Siddique On the whole a great job but the South Indian costumes looked straight out of an advertisement.

Finally to sum it all up, a quote: “It's the kind of movie home video was invented for: slam it into the DVD player and you get your rental's worth.”

Left right & Centre: - My south Indian friend sitting next to me - " On the whole enjoyable but do they really do such things in IIM's (he meant the sex!)" I looked at him and smiled and decided to remain  non committal lest I end up becoming an impediment to his daughter's entry into IIM in the near future!

Bottom Line: - The Punjabi & the Western culture come to the fore but the Tamilian culture is somehow lost in translation!
My Rating :- 1.50/Director/Cast & 1/Crew Total - 2.5/5

Until next time,

Director Haricharan 

Chennai

09/05/2014