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| Cast: Konkona Sen Sharma, Rani Mukherjee, Abhishek Bachchan, Kunal Kapoor, Jaya Bachchan | | Director: Pradeep Sarkar | | Producer: Yashraj Films | | Music: Shantanu Moitra |
Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films
A fabulous debut has one inherent problem: What do you do for the second act?
Director Pradeep Sarkar's Parineeta was a critical and commercial success.
Is Laaga Chunari Mein Daag a worthy successor? The answer unfortunately is no.
The film, a throwback to films like Aaina and Aastha, tells the story of Viabhavari, a nice, lower middle class girl from Beneras (Varanasi) who comes to Mumbai looking for a job. But the city brutilises her, forcing her to become a prostitute instead.
Pradeep Sarkar is a great visualiser. The film is beautifully shot and framed. Some scenes and dialogue wring out tears.
Rani Mukherjee is luminous as the cheerful small town girl who becomes a hollow shell of herself. But the film is less than the sum of its parts because its spine - the screenplay- is faulty.
Sarkar does a great job of establishing the family, their genteel poverty and their daily struggles to stem the fraying of their lives.
But a little after the move to Mumbai, the film starts to lose the plot. A random character named Michelle inducts Vibha into prostitution, declaring that she won't be a sadak chaap call girl but a top of the line escort.
In the second half , the focus shifts to Vibha's sister and her romance with an ad executive. This being a Yash Raj film, there are also some arbitrary songs in Switzerland.
But most bewildering is the character of the mother, played by Jaya bachchan.
She knows that her daughter is a prostitute but she seems to barely care.
Instead of trying to help her daughter, the mother advises her to stay away from Benares just incase people find out.
Laaga Chunari Mein Daag is a cauldron of wonderful cinematic talent, undone by half-baked writing. Now we await Pradeep's third film.
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Surfer Speaks....
on the 18th a whisper with time to see om shanti
om at albion -- Hemangini (hemangini@hotmail.com)
For space there is court in Delhi so why did bombay make another issue for space in the name
of marriage and then throw on the street to be
picked up by the locals for want of space. Where
is the class. On internet this is a controversy
between land line and picture. Technology is space and I want to pursue space for myself.
Thanks but no thanks amitabh. Hospitals should
be for personal health not an issue with maharashtra. The controversy remains there till
I am in Delhi once again and no face to be seen
for years to follow. -- Hemangini (hemangini@hotmail.com)
Rani is excellent. Better no more chance for Abhi. -- reema
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