The Leap

So I haven't been posting a lot lately. Apologies for that. A lot has been going on, and a lot more is in the offing, and a lot needs to be shared. Most importantly, I'm quitting my job to become a full-time writer, right after I'm back from Brazil in July. But first things first.

I have wanted to do this (become a full-time Jholawala) for a long time, and over the past six years, have come very close to taking the leap more than once. So finally, I'll end my tenure at my present job in the middle of May, take a long hiatus, and from July, I'll dedicate my time and energy to writing anything - fiction that I hope to get published, travelogues and reportage for anyone willing to pay for it, wedding cards, angry letters to exes... basically, I'll be a writer for hire. I could do some awesome bit of writing for you at very reasonable rates. Just saying.

On the personal front, things have never looked better. The Sharma family welcomed a new member to our folds last month - my younger brother-in-law got married to his long-time sweetheart, a brilliantly talented, beautiful and immensely patient (for putting up with li'l bro for this long) girl. The wedding was insane amounts of fun, especially after I discovered the privileges of being the groom's Bhabhi. I have also rediscovered the Bhabhi-Devar relationship as one in which I get to crack all the jokes and the victim gets to grit his teeth quietly in reverence to my age and status.

And oh, the Mom-in-law and I presented what was quite possibly the first ever Saas-Bahu item number in the history of Big Fat Indian Sangeet Ceremonies. It may or may not have included me donning a turban and serenading my (much taller) Saas to the tune of Kajra Mohabbat Wala... Also, based on post-wedding feedback, I think I have earned enough Good Bahu Credits to get away with a few more jokes at the cost of the newly married young man.

In the latter half of May, I'm visiting my hometown for a good number of days after many years. Now I don't remember the last time my sister and I stayed under a roof beyond the Critical Threshold of Domestic Peace - the maximum number of days we can go without pissing each other off. Hopefully, time and age have made us wiser and both of us will come out of the ordeal without tufts of hair missing this time.

Finally in June, the husband and I are taking off for Brazil - he for the FIFA, I for the chance to spend three freaking weeks in freaking Brazil. The plan is to visit about 12 cities and watch about 6 live matches that we've managed to buy tickets for, while soaking in as much of the local sights, culture and cuisine as the budget allows. Mostly the cuisine. Thanks to the husband's Footballing karma, we also have a couple of local homes on our itinerary. I will try my best to chronicle our journey through this blog as regularly as possible.

Wish me luck!

Rani aur Rachel

Being a small town girl who spent a lot of years living on my own, away from my sheltered upbringing, I am always very interested in stories of women finding themselves away from the context of their family and hometown. I can relate to these stories, as I see in these women bits of myself and of the many wonderful women I have known during my life as a single woman.

And I am equally interested in discussions about these stories and these women. So naturally, what started as a response to Baradwaj Rangan’s article in which he shares some thoughts on English Vinglish and Queen, has gone on to become... this.

B. Rangan has wondered aloud whether the stories of Shashi and Rani could not have been set within India, and whether it was necessary for them to be transported to a foreign country to really find themselves the way they do.

Now of course, a filmmaker has every right to set his story wherever they want, but that besides the point. The question that interests me is: would Rani or Shashi have an equally satisfying character arc if they just moved to another city in India?

Here, the possibilities for Rani and Shashi are very different. There isn’t enough space here to list the reasons why Shashi’s very special burst of empowerment had to come just the way it did in English Vinglish.

Rani is another matter. She is young, educated, single and has much more freedom than she has ever cared to exercise. She isn’t a rebel who has been quashed and submitted to family pressure - she simply never felt the need to come out of the cozy cocoon of her Delhi life and her family-approved boyfriend. Her family is more supportive than you’d give them credit for. As for the boyfriend, she doesn’t even notice what a jerk he was, until she gets a taste of life with better friends. Up until then, she had been taking all the humiliation in her stride as she gleefully marched towards her simple ideal of life.

Now Queen is a travel story, a beautiful one at that, and I wouldn’t dream of taking that away from this movie. But thinking strictly of Rani and her character arc, would it be equally satisfying if, instead of a vacation in Paris, she took a job in South Bombay or Bangalore? I don’t see why not. Only the transformation would be long-winded and perhaps painful and complicated, more like Rachel from Friends. Come to think of it, Rachel’s story starts with her running away from the altar, and over the course of the series she goes from being an unskilled waitress to build a successful career in fashion, becomes a single mother, and is finally free to choose the man in her life without letting him define her place in the world.

Personally, I have known more Rachels than Ranis. These are women who started out with pretty clear and narrow ideas of who they were - whether the upright Momma’s girl or the liberated manic pixie - and each wound up with a life quite unlike what they imagined it would be, living it as better, wiser versions of themselves.

These are stories waiting to be told, but coming back to B Rangan's question - would they make for popular movies? Certainly, if put in the right hands, i.e. hands that are not attached to Madhur B. His approach to storytelling is pretty elegant - put a good little middle class girl in a big bad city, and everything bad that might happen, probably will happen to her or one of her dear friends. While the very worst does happen to an unfortunate few, for most of us life in a big city is not so much a downward spiral of morality and self-worth, as it is an ongoing series of many crests and troughs.

Epiphany doesn’t usually come in neat little packages of one breakup, one vacation, one badass friend, one cute Italian and one transformation. The girl who gives up on career for the guy of her dreams doesn't necessarily get the strongest marriage. The guy who broke your heart doesn’t conveniently come grovelling back to make you realize just how much you have changed. There may be more than one heartbreak, more than one night of drunk-dialling, more than one wrong turn and many little lessons along the way.

We have, of course seen stories more complex, with characters that are truer to life and mostly portrayed by Konkona SenSharma. Sadly, those filmmakers did not feel her arc was worthy enough to take centre stage, and wrapped it inside layers of the male protagonist’s saga. In Wake Up Sid, while the focus is mostly on the man-child Ranbir, it was refreshing that Konkona’s Aisha wasn’t some boring, cut-and-dried Ms. Perfect with crystal clear ideas about her life and priorities. We see her as the slightly vulnerable girl from Kolkata who needs the light frivolity of the Bombay brat as much as he needs her maturity. She finally chooses this brat, who unabashedly enjoys old comedy on TV over the suave, snotty boss who is determined to refine her musical taste.

In Luck By Chance too, while Farhan Akhtar as the lucky rascal who makes it big in Bollywood hogs most of the limelight, the film is bookended with the fresh and innocent Sona (Konkona) as a young struggler in the beginning, and a more confident, mildly successful but hugely content TV actress in the end.

And then there was Tara.

Back in the old, old days of Indian Television, women were allowed to appear on the small screen without three tons of gold and eight layers of makeup. It was acceptable for a young woman to have a real job, not because she had a train of siblings to support, or the survival of the family business depended all the skill and acumen gathered over years in the kitchen, but simply because.

Back in those pre-historic days, we had Tara. It was the story of four young women from smaller towns who started a life in Bombay, with nothing but each other to lean upon. Each of these women has a very defined and very unique trajectory of success, love and personal growth. The thread connecting the many strands of the narrative was the deep and sincere friendship between these women, which provides anchor no matter how far any of them drifts away. 

The show went on and on for a duration that felt treacherous back in the 90’s, and we bitched and we mocked. But as far as the girl-on-growth-path theme goes, few stories have stayed so true to purpose, so honest and affectionate and so without judgment.

Polish film Life Is Good, and thoughts on portrayal of disability

I wrote about my trip to Goa for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) at The Heat And Dust Project. I have discussed this film briefly over there. This is the longer version from my IFFI notes. Hope to write about more films as and when I find time and motivation.

Based on real life stories, Life Is Good - a 2013 film by Polish writer-director Maciej Pieprzyca is about Mateusz, a boy with severe developmental problems that render him unable to move around (except for crawling on the floor), use his hands or, most importantly, talk. Owing mainly to his inability to communicate, he is written off as intellectually retarded, and spends over 25 years locked inside a stubborn body that cannot keep up with his intelligent mind.

The story is narrated by a voiceover speaking for Mateusz, so that we look at his world from inside his mind. We are made privy to thoughts and information that people in his immediate surroundings are completely disconnected from, and consequently share the frustration of trying to convey something simple and banal to a world that has written you off as a vegetable.

The ability to communicate is the Holy Grail of Mateusz’s life. But he is not the only one. Seemingly ‘normal’, healthy people, who appear well-adjusted on the surface, also suffer from an inability or lack of opportunity to express themselves. The film explores these themes from a very unique vantage point.

A striking feature of this film is its ability to evoke very powerful emotions without resorting to manipulative tactics in the way we have seen similar subjects being treated in most mainstream Indian and Hollywood films. There were utterly laughable moments, such as when Mateusz shares with us his ‘rating system for tits’, and some that wrung tears or made me wince. None of those moments are labored. Mateusz goes through emotional highs and lows nearly like anyone else. There are passages where a general gloom starts setting in, and one gets a feeling that nothing good can ever come his way anymore. The easy transition back to routine life or the next 'happy' phase seems to suggest that it is nearly impossible for a human being to remain unhappy for too long, no matter how bleak the proceedings get.

Most importantly, while disability plays a huge role in Mateusz's life, the film isn't just about that - it is about a very interesting person his struggle against a very formidable obstacle.

This is such a departure from the usual portrayals of disability we have seen on screen. In Bollywood at least, every time you see a character with any kind of disability, rest assured you're in for some quality weepy time. Some good examples that come to mind are two of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's much feted products - Khamoshi and Black. I haven't seen Guzaarish*, so can't comment on that. In both the films I have seen, physical handicap is treated as an external feature, a cause of pain and anguish to people around, and an opportunity to create some memorable visuals. Think Nana Patekar hopping about on a beach to indicate some happy news; or Manisha Koirala talking to Salman Khan in sign language although both of them can speak and hear perfectly well; or Rani Mukherjee in every single frame of Black.

The treatment in Black is even more curious, given that the story is narrated in a voice over speaking for Rani Mukherjee, much like Mateusz tells us his story. The voice over in Black however, is only a narrative device, perhaps added as an afterthought. It does nothing to add perspective to the story unfolding on screen. As the omniscient viewer, all we see is the physical world of our characters - people screaming, howling, laughing, crying, or dancing with the sole purpose to fill up every frame with heartbreaking beauty. It helps that beautiful frames are Bhansali's forte, and nobody does it better than him.

Even Gulzaar's much more nuanced Koshish, which tells the story of two hearing impaired people coming together to create a life of love and dignity, rarely peeps below the events in the life of our characters to give us their thoughts. The film is somewhat biographical, following the lives of Haricharan and Aarti as they meet as young adults, fall in love, marry, have children and grow old. It also aims to be something of an inspirational story. Still, would it be any less inspiring if we knew something about our principle characters other than the fact that they cannot talk? Even if it were something as banal as informing us that Hari is a tea addict while Aarti prefers coffee?

I have only mentioned films which I actually like, choosing to completely ignore the more insensitive and cringe-inducing portrayals of physical and mental disability in mainstream cinema. Each of these movies has been among my most cherished list at some point or the other. Each of them has made me cry. After meeting Mateusz however, after getting a peek into his inner world, his opinions, even his less than stellar human qualities, I find myself wishing I knew a bit more about Hari, Aarti, Joseph, Flavy, and Michelle.

* It just occurred to me while writing this: is it odd that SLB has so far made three films about differently abled people, and all of these people are Christian?

Raam Romeo Michael Montague

A version of this was published at The Heat And Dust Project blog, because apparently I'm all about publishing multiple versions of one article now.

This time Mr Bhansali, you had me at hello. Well, almost, before you lost me at “I am Sanjay.” The moment the lilting strains of a Gujarati folksong (music is credited to the man Bhansali himself) give way to the stunning visual of a group of village belles framed in a grand gateway against the desert sun, I was prepared to forgive this movie anything. This was with almost as much certainty as a decade ago, when the opening visual of an obscenely bedecked and bejewelled Smita Jaikar hopping around in an obscenely lavish haveli told me that it was a mistake to spend money on Devdaas. Anyway.

For the first hour, Raam Leela stays pretty close to the Romeo and Juliet template and this part is marked with some clever writing and good pace. The Montagues and Capulets are introduced to us as Rajadis and Sanedas, two warring communities in a lawless village in northern Gujarat. The violence-averse playboy heir of the Rajadi clan falls for the vivacious daughter of First Family of the Sanedas in a masquerade party that is suitably substituted with a Holi party here. There is even the famous balcony scene, shot on a ridiculously pretty studio set.

Then at a crucial junction, Mr Bhansali decides he can do better than Shakespeare, and gleefully steers the story off track and into the deep dark woods of Bhansali-land. So instead of getting banished after spending one night with his Juliet, Ram-eo here elopes with Leela, then they do something, then something happens, and the story spirals out of control. Romeo and Juliet takes a turn for Godfather, the violence, which was so far chiefly played for humour, becomes very real, very brutal and very personal. At times, this feels appropriate - nobody can get mired in this endless cycle of revenge and come out whole, the film seems to tell us.

Every frame is as gorgeously mounted as you’d expect an SLB offering to be. In fact, set pieces and elements that felt overbearing and suffocating in his earlier fares, seem to work here. And there are many echoes of his earlier work. So many of the set pieces feel like Sanjay Leela Bhansali is paying a silent tribute to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, that you can make it into a drinking game. The bridge from Saawariya - bottoms up! The Ganga Ghat scene from Devdas - bottoms up! The tree over pond in a courtyard - bottoms up!

Not that I blame Sanjay Leela Bhansali for being heavily inspired by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, seeing as Sanjay Leela Bhansali is one of the very best we have right now. He has the power to transport you to a wonderland of visual delights where you won’t feel surprised to encounter an upside down tree laden with golden kiwi fruit and still somehow believe you are in a remote village in the sands of Kutch. So never mind how Navratri comes close on the heels of Holi, or why people are flying kites in October (Sankranti, the big kite festival of Gujarat, comes in January).

I must also add that of all the recent films set in Gujarat, this is the one that has captured the sounds of Gujarat most beautifully (I won’t say most realistically, for I have never been to that part of Gujarat myself). I melted into a pool of awww... when the room service guy at a cheap motel in a small town shouts “Toowaal, saabu, paaNi?” Ranveer also gets his Gujju accent and swagger pretty close. That is, for nitpickers like me who care about accents when there is so much man-cleavage and shiny man-hair on display.

The problem is that the drama here hits a crescendo one too many times. The story comes frustratingly close to a climax and instead of denouement, you find yourself at the beginning of a whole new Act. This happens over and over again, until you want everyone to shoot each other and die already.

This, of course, applies if you consider the mass of white turbans and red veils, providing the backdrop for our differently-coloured protagonists, as people. For all practical purposes, these are human props, bobbing their heads, jumping in synchrony, or dropping like flies as required by the script, nay, the choreographer. They have no more identity than the faceless storm troopers in a Star Wars movie or the blank ovals in a newspaper cartoon. Even their blood is shed, it would seem, because the splash of red provides a nice contrast on those white robes.

At one point, Ranveer does the daring thing and walks into the lioness’s den - Supriya Pathak playing the matriarch of the Saneda clan, in arguably the best role of her career - to seek an end to the centuries-long enmity between the clans. This he does by first offing more Saneda men than Mithun ever killed in the climax of his most blood-drenched revenge saga in the 90’s. Through all this, Pathak continues chanting her morning mantra, and later coolly chats with the uninvited guest. No mention is made of the dozen or more men who just died. None of them has a name.

When a woman from the Rajadi clan later taunts Pathak over the murders of men in her community, her lines fail to invoke any emotion in me. By this time, so many people have been senselessly murdered, one doesn’t care if our Raam and Leela join their ranks sooner rather than later.

Stray notes (may contain spoilers):

• For all the talk about the sizzling chemistry between our leads, they never actually do it. After kissing passionately in their first two meetings, when both of them find themselves alone inside a closed shop, they grab the opportunity by... dancing side by side like Jeetendra and Sridevi, only with better figures, costumes and choreography.
• Richa Chaddha deserves better.
• Abhimanyu Singh deserves better.
• Not only does the film trail away from the Romeo and Juliet plot, it keeps wavering close to the classic plot and swaying away. So one of the lovers hears the false rumor of the other's death, only to find the said person in their own room, alive and kicking, minutes later. 
• We also have Raza Murad playing the nominal Sarpanch, ostensibly a version the Prince from the Bard's play, only unlike the Prince, our Sarpanch doesn't do anything.
• Raza Murad deserves better.
• Since I've already mentioned Supriya Pathak performance, let me add that this fuels my grouse against the so-called 'Art' cinema of yore, where a young Ms. Pathak was a familiar face. Those realistic, gritty movies gave this talented actress nothing but simpering cameos and third or fourth leads. It took the uncompromising dramatic sensibilities of an SLB to bring the best out of her. When she throws a dark glance at one of the men surrounding her lady Don character, it is easy to see why this stout woman can make grown men pee in their pants.
• This film isn't for everybody, and it will soon prove to be one of those films that polarize both audiences and critics. Predictably, critics lavishing (not undeserved) praise have been accused of writing paid reviews, and I won't be surprised if the negative ones get panned soon.
• Speaking of negative reviews, The Vigil Idiot has surpassed himself this time. It takes a great movie to bring out the best in a brilliant critic. It's like an artist and his muse.

Plugging for friends, family and self

The sparkling young novelist and scholar, Devapriya Roy and that brainy husband of hers, Saurav Jha are finally in the process of giving shape to their labour of love, The Heat And Dust Project. The 'shape' will be of a book, about which I'll update you as soon as it is published. In the meanwhile, they have started a very interesting and eclectic blog, where I might contribute some film-related articles every once in a while. My post on a recent Marathi film Premachi Goshta is here.

The Heat And Dust Project - the book will be an account of a very interesting journey the duo took up some time ago, travelling through India on a shoestring budget. Devapriya has already written two novels - the first one, The Vague Woman's Handbook is a sweet tale of female bonding that suffers from unfair categorization into the chick-lit genre. Her second book, The Weight Loss Club - The Curious Experiments of Nancy Housing Cooperative, is sitting on my table as I type this, and you can expect a review pretty soon. You can sample some of her writing here. As you can tell, the girl needs a crash course in Short Titles.

Saurav Jha blogs and writes about defense, economics, science and other brainy stuff beyond my humble comprehension, so I'm not in a position to tell you much about him. You can read some of his articles here, or pick up his book The Upside Down Book of Nuclear Power, because though I haven't read it yet, a book with that title cannot be half bad, no?

While at IBN Live, do also check out the new blog by V K Sharma, who retired as Executive Director as RBI last year. It's called Uncluttering the Clutter, and as the name suggests, it is a to-the-point commentary on the world of Indian Banking and Finance. The blog offers refreshing clarity and an original perspective which is likely to appeal to anyone interested in more than a superficial analysis of the subject. And I swear I'm not just writing this because Mr Sharma has been kind enough to let me marry his son.

Disclaimer:
While none of the above people have bribed me to promote their books/blogs, I'm pretty open to future opportunities.

Where are the Indian Superheroes?

In one of his many, many attempts at career suicide, Shahid Kapoor did this embarrassing little film called Wah! Life Ho To Aisi in which he is killed off by Yamraj by mistake, and returns as a ghost. Amid the copious amounts of obnoxiousness in this film, there was this neat little bit thrown in where a fellow ghost played by Arshad Warsi helps him gain superpowers to help his mortal family, and the mantra he is asked to chant, turns out to be the good old Hanuman Chalisa. After all, Hanuman was the original superhero, reasons the ghost Arshad.

I was reminded of that scene while watching Krrish 3, where once again, we have tried our hand at a genre Hollywood seems to be so good at, and we have done this by totally aping everything Hollywood does. Right to the origin stories for our superheroes and supervillains. And ever since I started wondering why, the question has just been killing me. I swear it has been the most excruciating half hour of my life.

I mean, why are we even trying to explain away our heroes with magic alien mojo and our villains with rubbish like girgit ka DNA and other pseudo scientific mumbo jumbo, when we have such a vast treasure of myths and legends at our disposal? Our mythology is full of miraculous births - we have people born in pots, out of multiple wombs, out of liaisons with Gods - Kunti in Mahabharata only ever birthed half-God babies - and most of these people are born with some superpowers. Karna actually came with a built-in life jacket. Just think of all the possible superhero stories that can be created for the modern world with inspiration from these legends.

There is no dearth of super villains either. Besides ten-headed Ravana, we have the born-in-two-halves Jarasandha, the sleeping giant Kumbhakarna, the half-dozen or more demons young Krishna had to vanquish before getting to the baby-murderer Kansa... Then there is Shishupala, born with extra body parts and grown into a resentful adult. Why hasn't anyone tried to model a villain on him?

There is of course, the provision of Tapasya, a tough penance that may go on for years or decades, by the end of which an ordinary person can gain special boons from the Gods and become protectors or villains depending on their bend of mind. And then there are legends of magical springs, elixirs and divine objects that can bestow special powers on the Pure of Heart. Then there are people like Gandhari, whose great sacrifice of living with a blindfold for all those years turns her gaze into something powerful, shielding, that makes the person she sets sight upon, invincible in combat.

With so many fascinating plot devices and superpower varieties at our disposal, why do we turn to half-ass attempts to rationalize the existence of superheroes and super villains in a fantasy genre? The only films that do take inspiration from our mythology seem to be only interested in the superficial plot points, and not the characters themselves. Rajneeti, I'm looking at you. Do our writers or producers lack confidence in the tales our grandmothers told us, or have they simply forgotten the old stories?

Krrish 3: A League of Extraordinary Losers

It occurred to me after watching Krrish 3 that all the four leads - for Vivek & Kangana here are nearly as important, and arguably more interesting, than Hrithik-Priyanka - are talented people in their own right, and neither has got their dues as actors.

Hrithik Roshan - good looking to a fault and reasonably talented, very few of his films outside of dad's productions have done well enough to perch him securely on that superstar pedestal. That obnoxious giant Krrish statue in the film might as well be a metaphor for Roshan Jr's Bollywood dream. It's not like he isn't getting meaty roles - in fact, he only ever gets very meaty roles - but have you noticed that the guy is actually so good at playing ordinary, flawed, evolving guy-next-door roles? Still, other than the Akhtar siblings, everybody tends to cast him in these uber dramatic, larger-than-life characters in an attempt to make the most of his gorgeous looks. And you thought only actresses got pigeon-holed in pretty-girl roles!
Every few years, Papa Roshan has to pull up his socks and come up with yet another Hrithik vehicle, and also nudge Uncle Rajesh Roshan out of slumber for one more soundtrack, and the Hrithik boat floats for a while. But the older Roshans are getting... old now. If the insipid music in Krrish 3 is any indication, Uncle Roshan is tired. I may have been hallucinating, but I almost heard strains from Koyla in that weird song where everybody was dancing around the Mayawati-like statue of Roshan Jr. Please Hrithik Baba, let your old uncle retire in dignity and make a career on your own like a grown up man.

Priyanka Chopra - whether all that gossip about star wives conspiring against her is true, or there are just not enough good roles for the girls, but this talented actress seems to be doing only glam-doll roles of late. Not that there is anything wrong in looking that gorgeous. But unlike Kareena who keeps doing some interesting films once in a while, Priyanka seems to have regressed to doing the kind of roles up-and-coming starlets would give an arm and a leg for. In Krrish 3, she doesn't even seem interested in making the most of the few villainy bits given to her, and instead spends her screentime looking perfectly blow-dried and manicured. That her part here is imminently replaceable is underlined by scenes where she is literally replaced in the film by the shape-shifting Kaya.

Vivek Oberoi - once again, the guy shows how much acting he has in him if he only got the chance. The paraplegic scientist-genius Kaal is just the showcase for Oberoi Jr's acting chops, and he plays it with gusto, channeling the full force of his emoting abilities through is face. There is something tragically meta about the scene where he uses his whackado machinery to suck the mojo out of Hrithik to gain full mobility so he may unleash his full telekinesis powers - if only Vivek had had the opportunities Hrithik got in his career, how much more he could have achieved by now!
This just might be the turning point in Vivek's career, if he is open to playing more negative roles, because God knows we haven't had interesting villains in a while. If it wasn't for some incredibly stupid lines thrust upon him, Kaal would have become one of our most memorable super-villains yet. For now, Amjad Khan and Amrish Puri can lie peacefully in their graves, because Gabbar and Mogambo are under no threat from the guy who couldn't come up with anything more badass to say than, "I like it."

Kangana Ranaut - she showed so much promise when she first appeared on the scene, playing bold, pivotal characters in unusual stories. Somewhere along the way, the actress got typecast, ridiculed, and somehow reduced to playing forgettable roles in forgettable films. Now a superhero flick may not be the best place to exhibit emotional nuance for actresses, but it is a place to cash in on your remarkable screen presence, which is just what she does here. She digs her teeth into some truly 70's style bad girl mannerisms, and gets them just right. Also, a vamp role in such a film is the stylist's wet dream to run wild with their runway fantasies, which is just what Ms. Ranaut's stylists here do. The result is... um.. interesting.

Krrish 3 is a fun watch, I just could not hate the film the way I expected I would, and the grouses I do have with it, seem to be deliberate creative choices to keep the film easy on the brain, rather than creative negligence. Still, it is far from the best showcase for its four leads (the need for any more actors in pivotal roles is pretty much eliminated by having two of the main roles played by Roshan Jr). Each of these actors is capable of doing a lot more, a lot better and I sincerely hope to see more from each of them very soon. Hopefully without masks, metal or crotch harnesses.