Dedh Ishqiya: A surprise let down

Dedh Ishqiya
Starring: Madhuri Dixit, Arshad Warsi, Naseeruddin Shah, Huma Qureshi
Rated: 4.5/10
Go into this one for arrested moments of a nawabi past and you will get a scintillatingly run-down feeling that a ruinous haveli and its even more ruinous secrets hold out. The cepia tint that the entire film around a widowed begum of Mehmudabad on a husband hunt uses to good effect, does take you back into the bygone era of Urdu shero-shaiyari, nazakat and nafasat, but that’s about it.
Depite the arresting presence of Madhuri Dixit as Begum Para and Huma Qureshi as her friend/companion, the film stills down on the story so suddenly that you squirm for more. Yes, theIshqiya duo is all there in Arshad Warsi and Naseeruddin Shah but their cutting edge meanness and negativity is missing here. One is stung into inanity by a lost love and the other just ambles along the sidelines without much of the devastating effect the two had had on your minds in the original.
In between all this, there is an overdose of ambience capturing that the director strives for to catch up with the lost times of Urdu days.
True to its title, Dedh Ishqiya is just that — only one-half, not a full blown film — much behind its original which pulsated with such comprehensive negativity of all the characters in it that it continues to remain embedded in your subconscience even after so many years. The sequel, on the other hand, is sadly a neither here nor there story not saying much about anything. The stress is more on capturing the era and that has been done to perfection.
However, and very surprisingly, Madhuri somehow fell short on the nawabi nazaqat that a begum should have sported. Her Urdu lacks the swagger and her stance is too fast and sometimes even to behove of the gentle gait that a begum high on shayari and naach should have sported. Even Huma’s Urdu diction is not convincing enough though Naseer more than makes up for these shortcomings with his excellence with the language and its tantalising leheza. 
Source: Sunday Pioneer, January 12, 2014

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