Tamasha

Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone

Rated: 6/10

Imtiaz Ali’s latest with Ranbir Kapoor is a dark, brooding romance with a whole lot of existential issues, in fact it is more about existentialism than romance.

Many would furiously question Ali for getting into the underbelly of the hopeless emotionalism of an incorrigible dramebaaz trapped in a frustrated management grad’s garb when Bollywood's most romantic pair was ready to explode with sizzling combustibility that none other can garner on screen today.

It would be a pertinent query thrown at Ali but as you survive (I say survive because it was really tedious to sit through the extended theatricals and flashbacks) the first half-hour of unexplained symbolism meant to set the tone of this complex mount, you realise there’s something stark, real and disturbing that is being raised by Ali for whom realism in cinema means more than being the constructor of just a breezy paisa vasool romance.

Besides, the movie is all Ranbir and hardly Deepika though the brightest, most luminous moments in the film are brought in by her stunning presence and totally seasoned histrionics. She had nothing much to do other than look as beautiful as Corsica’s hidden treasures where both weave a make-believe, forget-when-you-fret romance, and be disturbingly patient with Ranbir’s daddy-put-me-there blues when she meets him again in a more real environment. This is something that Ali should have been careful not to have done, considering the powerhouse of versatility she is and the hues she is capable of lending a love story.

But then Ali is, and has been, all Ranbir previously too and this time round, he had a few contemporary issues to sort out through him — like a rat race forced onto a son by a legacy bogged father, like a son who falls in line to give up his identity to become someone else, like stepping out from a syrupy make-believe world and stepping into an aam aadmi straitjacket, the blues of a romance being overpowered by life itself and the identity crisis that a free spirit suffers when he is tied down to daily mores of what is perceived as “success”.

Phew! Where would romance brew in such a heavy cauldron? It does but soon gets lost in Ranbir’s undying angst and Deepika’s negation.

Ranbir, of course, lives up to being this complex, hapless, hopeless, enraged, theatrical, deeply emotional, self-flogging child-turned-boy with a lot of fire and ice. His instant but seamless flips from normality to abnormality, fun to anger and happiness to hopelessness are scripted by him on screen with perfection, making him stand out among all his peers. But it’s Ali who somewhat takes the game away from him by being too heavy and complex about a simple, everyday issue — after all daddys are from the Silicon Valley and most sons may want to be from Broadway. Both survive a little more easily than Ali would have them do so on screen.

You could say, this one is a little bit of 3 Idiots without all the fun, a whole lot of Rockstar without the music (only Heer To Badi Sad Hai makes some noise) and an edginess that Ali thrives on when it comes to his heroes — be Jordan, Mahabir Bhati or his latest — Ved. 

Source: The Sunday Pioneer, 29 November, 2015