Bullets Over Bardway: On "Ram-Leela" (Among Other Things)

Is Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Ram-Leela a return to form? I suppose the answer to that question depends on what you've thought of his oeuvre. Devdas is perhaps his most divisive work; many have leveled charges of misogyny, mistreatment of the source material, and overwhelming visual and dramatic excess against the film. I, for one, think Devdas is one of the great films of Hindi cinema - disturbing, gorgeous, and fully, consistently successful in realizing the gilded lunacy of its creator's vision. In Devdas, the characters hurtle toward the doom that their  obsessive loves have ensured for them with an almost blissful single-mindedness. The film is ripe with the kind of foreshadowing that is usually reserved for horror narratives. And indeed, Devdas is a horror film of sorts. Love is both god and monster, and since there is no fleeing from it, the infuriating, fascinating victims in Bhansali's cavernous yet claustrophobic world run toward it, bloodied and crazed.

Khamoshi and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Bhansali's first two films, are generally beloved, and both are interesting movies. I suppose people also enjoy these films more because they contain likable characters who behave sensibly and anchor the film to some sort of rational ground with their general sanity. But Bhansali wasn't yet fully in control of his themes or his visual grammar (the latter issue might have to do with smaller budgets) when he made these films, and the shakiness is evident (and, to many viewers, much more endearing than the obsessive directorial control in his later films). Black, which followed Devdas, is an operatic retelling of the Helen Keller story, reworked as a romance, presented with a deeply unironic, Capra-esque reverence for the triumph of the human spririt, and buoyed by enormous, deeply moving lead performances by Rani Mukerji and Amitabh Bachchan. After the failure of Saawariya (a film I didn't quite love, but admired for its fully committed weirdness), much-derided for its unrelenting, literal blueness and its entirely artificial dark-fairytale setting, Bhansali decided to go high-minded again, except the result, Guzaarish, was a well-intentioned, lovely-looking, mush-heavy mess, with courtroom scenes of unbelievable clunkiness and an embarrassingly limp subplot regarding intrigue in the world of professional sorcery. Bhansali is ultimately an artist in thrall to l'amour fou, and if he'd focused his narrative lens on the quietly tragic love story of its lead pair (an enjoyable Hrithik Roshan opposite Aishwarya Rai, in what is her perhaps her greatest performance to date), he'd have made a much more satisfying movie.

Ram-Leela is certainly satisfying. It's the most fun I've had at the movies all year, and I'd go as far as to say that it's the most purely fun film Bhansali's ever made. The film is an old-fashioned romantic melodrama, with its sprawling dynasties, its mythic overtones, and its delightfully purple prose (the language is almost always full of delights in a Bhansali film, the lines fashioned with both wit and lyricism.) It is also a gleefully frank, uproariously bawdy exploration of sexual attraction. There is such boundless joy in Ram and Leela's undisguised lust for each other, their inability to keep their eyes or hands off each other, that one can't help but be swept along in the thrilling currents of their desire. There is much to love here. Just like the yards of fiery red chillies left out to dry all over the roofs and courtyards of the Gujarati township the film is set in, Ram-Leela crackles with color and flavor. Bhansali's films usually have a lapidary quality; everything is precisely where the director wants it to be, and even the elements stream into his cinematic worlds in pre-determined patterns. Ram-Leela has that preciseness in its aesthetic, but it's also looser, more naturalistic than most of Bhansali's films, and that looseness feels just right in a movie where violence and chaos, and not just the emotional sort, can break out at any moment.

Ram-Leela is based on Romeo and Juliet, and Shakespeare, with his mix of high poetry and lowbrow humor, his beautiful heroines and scheming villains, is perfectly suited to Bhansali's filmic sensibilities. While some critics have complained that too many new plot twists have resulted in a convoluted second half, I thought that these inventions both kept this very familiar tale relatively unpredictable and gave larger, more engaging context to the central love story. The protagonists' growing, unhappy awareness that their passion is not independent of the world they inhabit is what informs and distinguishes Bhansali's take on the source material.

Consider, for instance, the rewriting of the Capulet parents. Dhankor Baa (Supriya Pathak) is a character of such magnificent ferocity that she alone is enough to distinguish this version of the play from the countless others. But this character also allows Leela, our desi Juliet, to be more than just a longing ingenue. As the daughter of the area's most powerful woman, she is the heir to her mother's empire, which leads to the lovers facing off, in the film's most tense, moving scene, as not only the offspring of warring families but as the rival heads of those families. In this retelling, the protagonists have more to consider, eventually, than the affairs of their own heart, and these raised stakes worked very well for me.

The film's chief joy is its lead pair. Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone are sweet and teasing and hilarious and relaxed and almost impossibly sexy together. Theirs is the sort of intimacy that makes you feel like you ought to perhaps look away, because it's so charged (especially in the delicious Ang Laga De number), but you can't, of course, because they're having such a grand time with each other. Deepika is instantly iconic as Leela. She is lovely to look at, but she isn't delicately ethereal like the heroines of Bhansali's other notable love stories. Her presence is earth and fire; visually, she's a little more Smita Patil in Mirch Masala (another film full of scorching sunlight and red chillies everywhere) than Aishwarya Rai in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Her performance is so rich with emotion and mood, her big, wet eyes so melodious with expression, that I can confidently say that we have an engaging, even surprising, actor in Deepika Padukone, one who has much more to her than I, for one, could have imagined. And she is at ease here as she's never been, which might have something to do with her male lead. Ranveer has a genius for onscreen authenticity. Uninhibited in the most wonderfully genial way, he finds the exact chord of mania that Bhansali needs of his men, and makes actorly music out of the madness. Ranveer is that rare leading man, one with true range and the physical gifts that allow full expression to that range. As Ram, he is lecherous, clownish, feral, elated, broken-hearted, and philosophical, sometimes all at once. It is a great, generous performance.

Ram-Leela didn't leave me in tatters as Devdas did, and it didn't even make me very sad, as Lootera, the year's other romantic tragedy starring Ranveer, did. I actually left the film curiously elated, though the film stays faithful, in its own fashion, to the play's denouenement. In the end, I suppose I carried away with me not that final bout of bloodshed, but the singing, dancing lovers, so obviously, entirely, vitally happy to be in love with each other.

On "Chennai Express" and its Pleasant Surprises

I don’t hate Rohit Shetty’s films.* They’re largely inoffensive, unlike Sajid Khan’s aggressively terrible movies, and have a sweetness and eagerness to please that I can appreciate. Shetty also repeatedly uses a little group of funny character actors that includes women, who are rarely allowed to be funny anymore in mainstream Hindi films, and these performers go a long way to camouflage the stiffness of his favored leading man, Ajay Devgn. Furthermore, his gaze seems to be more respectful of the female leads in his films than many other mainstream filmmakers’.

I can’t quite recommend Shetty’s work, though. His films are generally short on any sort of narrative, and depend, instead, on a series of skits and gags and numerous action interludes that involve cars blowing up. Now, if all the gags were funny, the absence of a cohesive plot wouldn’t really be a problem. But the jokes, too, are hit-and-miss, and staged inconsistently. The actors usually flail wildly from physical comedy to melodrama pitched at an absurdly jarring level and directed with tone-deaf ineptitude. The lines in his films, too, seem to have been written by someone with a tin ear. Also, Shetty rarely demonstrates an eye for song sequences or even much general visual flair. He loves a big group dance number, but the songs aren’t memorable, the choreography often limp (except when the amazing Arshad Warsi does it.)

So I was surprised when, by the end of Chennai Express, the director’s latest film left me pretty damn impressed. Many people have lamented its record-breaking success, complaining that it’s just another action-comedy potboiler, the type of film often referred to as “mindless” or “leave-your-brains-at-home” in Indian film reviews. The thing is, Chennai Express, while not a path-breaker or game-changer, or even a particularly great film, is not quite like many of those other movies. It is actually made with care and some thought. For one, there is a narrative (and it’s fairly silly, but it keeps chugging along), and there are character arcs, and gradual growth. You understand why the protagonists do what they do, and why they need to be put in the situations they are put in. Rahul needs to grow up, not run away from his problems, and stop being a man-child. Meena goes along with Rahul because she’s initially amused by him and eventually falls for him. (The film doesn’t tell us this in a heavy-handed, out-of-nowhere scene when it’s convenient; We see it. The excellent Deepika Padukone, in a series of moments, telegraphs beautifully her growing fondness for her companion.) The lead actor is actually right for the part, and doesn’t grunt or posture through the film. The lead female is not a prop who is trotted out for songs. She gets to be funny and spunky, and she gets to save the day (and the guy) several times. And the guy doesn’t get to be the Hero all the way through. He’s not the garden-variety macho rascal who reforms and gets tough with the goons just in time for the fight scenes. He’s an ordinary dude who sucks at hitting on women, sucks at being a responsible grandson, and sucks at being brave. He whimpers in fear, he calls attention to his own lack of height and heft in comparison to the Herculean antagonist, he gets shown up by the people he insults or makes fun of again and again. (The Tamil people in the movie are rarely the passive butt of jokes; they’re actually painted much more sympathetically than the “Northern” protagonist. Impressively, Shetty has the Tamil folk speak Tamil instead of the awful accented Hindi that Deepika is saddled with but works around as gracefully as possible.)

Also, in one of my favorite moments, Meena jibes that Rahul must be at least fifty. Can you imagine any other mainstream over-forty superstar who’d gamely take all this? I’m not an SRK-super-fan. I love several of his films, but others leave me cold, and his performances are part of why. I thought Don 2, while stylish, was odious, and SRK’s performance a flamboyant miscalculation. Ra. One, or what I could stomach of it, was embarrassing. But SRK is winning here. He’s down with making fun of himself, a quality the lead in a comedy must possess. He’s willing to lampoon his star image. He’s willing to hide behind the girl, run away from a fight, sound less than hyper-masculine all the time. The emphasis here, at least until the last twenty or so minutes, is not, surprisingly enough, on being a MAN, but being a decent person. Even in the problematic climactic sequence, where (spoiler) Rahul fights Thangabali (Nikitin Dheer) for Meena’s hand while she watches helplessly, restrained by her father, is at least consistent with what we’ve seen of Rahul so far. He wins the fight not because he’s suddenly stronger than his much larger opponent. Thangabali still gets in the most punches. Rahul wins because he just won’t stop, and he’ll keep going, and he’s just clever enough to land a couple strategic blows. I’m not saying it’s a realistic fight sequence. It doesn’t need to be, in a film that is gleefully, unabashedly filmi right from the get-go. But Rahul’s victory seems grounded in what we’ve learned of the character and what we’ve seen of his growth.

One of the reasons I can’t stand many of the big star vehicles put out by the over-40 male brigade is the curiously humorless machismo, the braying self-importance, they bring to those films. There’s a refreshing self-awareness to SRK’s brand of humor that leavens the proceedings in Chennai Express, and Rohit Shetty’s over-the-top style is quite right for the actor’s more hammy tendencies.

And it’s a hamfest of a movie. The background score rings loud and dramatic throughout, characters have dumb catchphrases, and everyone, each expression writ large on his or her face, often yells lines instead of, you know, just saying them. But the film never becomes leaden or overbearing, because it keeps moving, for one, and because a lot of it is actually quite funny (the DDLJ scene and the device with the Hindi songs had me doubling up), and because the love story that blooms along the protagonists’ journey, and the film’s, is charming and convincing. Shetty directs the romantic portions with an unexpectedly light touch, and the SRK and Deepika have an easy, believable way with each other. Also helping are the gorgeously filmed songs. Titli is a stunner, and Deepika Padukone shows here why she is suddenly Bollywood’s sweetheart. I’ve realized that Deepika has a particular gift of managing to look wonderfully lovestruck, and when, as she is dancing in elaborate costume, Khan suddenly wraps himself around her, the look on her face is priceless. Kashmir Main Tu Kanyakumari pulsates with color and genial energy, while even the mandatory item number goes happily for comedy instead of raunch in its fun choreography.

In fact, the whole film has a visual dynamism that many mainstream masala-comedy filmmakers sadly do away with. It feels like a big film, with its large-scale songs and its sweeping shots and its use of color and its gorgeous sets and costumes and scenery. None of the camerawork is particularly innovative, and some of the green-screen work is pretty shoddy, but the money does show on-screen. It’s amply clear that this isn’t merely a vanity project where most of the budget was eaten up the male star’s fee. The people behind the film haven’t just put their big-name hero front and center and lazily thrown together a movie around him. I didn’t once get, “Eh, it’s a Shahrukh movie with Rohit Shetty, we’ll just make whatever and they’ll eat it up” from Chennai Express. I could discern a sustained effort to make an actual motion picture – a frequently foolish, lightweight trifle of a motion picture, for sure, but one that has genuine emotional beats and looks good and tells a story. You don’t feel insulted by Chennai Express. It may be “brainless” comedy, but it has been made with some thought and some cleverness. And that just might explain why Chennai Express, instead of being a quick-kill blockbuster with a big opening weekend and zero legs, ran long and merry.

*I remember legitimately enjoying the first Golmaal, and Bol Bachchan, despite its casual homophobia, has a crackerjack Abhishek performance. Golmaal 3, too, has its moments.

On "Lootera"

(Warning: Mild Spoilers Ahead!)

Vikramaditya Motwane's Lootera is a masterwork of melancholy. The director achieves a note of pure, precise sadness in this stylish exploration of love and betrayal (his second feature after the much-feted Udaan). Not for him the messy, tragicomic exuberance of the recent Raanjhanaa, or the drunken, excessive glamour of former mentor Sanjay Leela Bhansali's oeuvre (although he has clearly learnt from the latter how to set tone and mastermind mood with painterly care and to send the tension climbing skyward with a grand, merciless score.) Motwane is after an astonishing sort of movie-making economy. There is no fat, not a wasted breath. His fifties-set love story has the accelerating thump of a first-rate thriller and the elegantly inexorable narrative drive of Greek tragedy. 

Motwane is a filmmaker of preternatural restraint. He is neither precious nor overbearing with the period detail. (All of it - the folds of pastel taant and gem-hued silk on Sonakshi, the lamplit gloom of the zamindar-bari and its dark, heavy furniture, the muted gleam of centuries-old idols, the genteel floral upholstery of the Dalhousie vacation-home - is judiciously, assiduously staged and filmed.) There is not a single misstep, never a moment when the film veers out of control, even though his story itself is one of universes upended. Pakhi, the amiably spoilt daughter of a West Bengal zamindar has her pleasant, narrow life stirred by the arrival of a mysterious, handsome archaeologist, while her father, the aging aristocrat (played by Barun Chanda with the perfect blend of decaying refinement and tragic befuddlement), reluctantly gives in to the realization that the world is no longer as he once knew it. Quiet, soft-spoken Varun Srivastav (Ranveer Singh), who turns out to be the titular thief, is shaken by his growing attraction to Pakhi, even as she pursues him with adorably dogged determination. He flees from his love and hers, leaving Pakhi's life in ruins. The misfortunes keep coming, as do Amit Trivedi's songs, which are shot through with the golden, yearning, Bengal-inflected sweetness of S.D. Burman's melodies and the moist ache of R.D. Burman's work in films like Ijaazat and Masoom.

The material is the stuff of high romantic tragedy, but all my blather about economy and restraint may have conveyed to you a worrying sense of bloodlessness, an absence of a pulse in the film. Let me reassure you, then, that Lootera's heartbeat can be heard clarion-clear over its exquisite silences. Motwane tends to the love story at the center of his film with a gentle wit and a sorrowful quietude that reminded me of Gulzar's films of the seventies and eighties. Pakhi initiates the flirtation with Varun by asking him to give her painting lessons. She is soon the teacher, instructing him in a charming, summery interlude that will return only as stinging memory in the film's winter-sieged post-intermission portion. We really do want this pair of fragile young creatures - he, with his troubled eyes, she with her hope-starred half-smile - to make it, even though the coughing fit that ominously opens the film and the dark fable that follows it inform us that they might not, probably will not. Yet we watch, entranced, not least because of the lead pair.

Always a fun presence in dire movies, Sonakshi Sinha here is great in a way that I don't think any of her peers could manage. Her Pakhi is, true to the name, birdlike; impetuous and inquisitive, lively with mischief, pampered and happy, but eager to explore beyond the confines of her small, virgin world. Sonakshi is a terrific comedienne, getting some big laughs in the first half with those saucer eyes and that clever, teasing way of hers. She pouts magnificently in the early parts, but the endearing sulks of the first half become a furious, broken reproachfulness directed toward Ranveer Singh's character in the second. Ranveer's performance is all darkened stillness, his voice often almost disappearing into soundlessness, but it is a stillness riven by the heartache of the chronically unloved, the abandoned. Ranveer is a fearless, searching actor. Even in the low-key solemnity asked of him, he manages to find and illuminate shade upon shade in his character. He is feral with desperation, mad with guilt, and ultimately bright with purpose. He and Sonakshi set each other alight, whether they're caught in a voluptuous embrace or locked in ferocious battle.

A slender vein of redemption runs rapidly through Lootera's ending, and then it is all over. This is not a film that ends with you overwhelmed, awash in image and sound, even though Lootera's images and sounds are beautiful, memorable. It is a film that leaves a sigh in its wake and continues to trail softly through your mind long after you've watched it.

On "Raanjhanaa"

(Warning! Mild spoilers ahead!)

Aanand L. Rai's Raanjhanaa is a throbbing scarlet wound of a movie. Not since Shahrukh Khan jumped off the roof of a train and into Manisha Koirala's explosive embrace in Dil Se has a Bollywood movie been so bracingly, devastatingly, enormously lovesick. At one point in the film, Kundan (Dhanush) drives a scooter into the Ganges in jealous fury, having just been told by the object of his affections, Zoya (Sonam Kapoor), that she loves somebody else. He climbs out of the water, leaving the scooter and Zoya behind. Rai does something similar with the story, taking it headlong into dark, troubled territory, but he keeps propelling his film deeper and deeper until you realize that his film isn't about love triumphant or even, as the title might suggest, love unrequited. In Raanjhanaa, all love, whether it is mutual or one-sided, is a gorgeous, untethered beast, and ultimately all who love tumble helplessly into its waiting jaws. (The notion of falling in love is literalized in the film's visuals; Kundan, arms outstretched Christ-like, beatific smile in place, falling into the river, then onto a bed of Holi colors. This sort of euphoric falling prefigures a more violent felling much later in the movie.)

The plot begins in familiar, filmi territory. In Benaras, a Hindu priest's little boy (the adorable Naman Jain, with a spot-on imitation of Dhanush's accented Hindi) sees a Muslim professor's little girl, and is instantly smitten. His entire being is, from that moment onward, oriented toward Zoya; this shift in his growing consciousness is gloriously illustrated with Tum Tak, the first of Rahman's several perfect songs. Zoya, on her prayer mat, directs her attentions toward a loftier presence. (Further into the story, Zoya's gaze will once again overlook Kundan and train itself on a savior-like figure, the ambitious, high-minded Akram, played with pleasing reticence by Abhay Deol.)    

In typical swain-like fashion, Kundan follows Zoya around for years until she deigns to pay attention to him. Their romance is short-lived. Sent away for years by her parents due to the scandal her tryst with Kundan causes, Zoya comes back from university even more unattainable. Kundan is undaunted, however, and keeps pursuing her. You guys, this isn't even the first half of the film. Wrists have been slit, scooters have been launched into holy rivers, but the story hasn't even begun to go totally, spectacularly nuts. 

Despite the high drama, just about everything in Raanjhanaa rings true (except, perhaps, the political portions of the film, which seem a little too facile.) Even in Benaras, God is in the details, and Rai's team nails the chaos peculiar to small-town life. The camerawork is vividly naturalistic and kinetic, and the colors and textures of Benaras feel vividly lived-in, not art-directed. (Compare the amiably inelegant, dog-poop-laden gullies of Raanjhanaa  to the spit-shined surfaces of Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, another recent film set in Varanasi.) There were moments - the Holi scene where Kundan ambushes Bindiya (the delightful, ferocious Swara Bhaskar) comes to mind - where I felt as if I were in the scene, as if the film had leapt right off the screen and into real life. Rai makes sure to fill his frames with teeming life; a rally marches on as Dhanush dances to the title song, an old lady breathes in her inhaler just out of focus as he sneaks into Zoya's room during a party. Each part is cast just right, with an eye toward picking actors who look like they could actually be living in that mohalla or arguing ethics on that university campus. (The supporting cast is first-rate all around, with Zeeshan Ayyub, as Kundan's long-suffering bestie, stealing several scenes with his pithy one-liners and the actor playing Abhay Deol's sister making a strikingly mournful impression.)

The writing is the other reason I bought into the film's reality, all three instances of wrist-slitting included. Rai and Himanshu Sharma have created a singular pair of characters here. Zoya And Kundan are both children, in a way. They rush toward what they want and use whom they can, heedless of the damage they leave in their wake. Kundan is more obviously immature. He will attempt suicide, he will coerce his friends into some stomach-turning favors, he will abandon his own wedding, in his single-minded obsession. Zoya seems more put-together at first, but she is just as careless, and perhaps more willfully so. From an early age, she is aware of her charms, amused by their effect, and completely willing to employ them to her benefit and enjoyment. Zoya is a girl rather in love with herself. Her lowest point is the exile to her aunt's house, where she isn't allowed to shine bright, be noticed or admired. Even when she falls for a guy, one senses that she likes him, at least in part, because of the sort of person she can be with him - strong, powerful, respected, of consequence. She doesn't love Kundan, but, in that frightening, potent scene where he tells her that he could have loved anybody else, her reaction tells us that she might not really want him to stop loving her. Both these characters' neuroses take interesting turns in the second half (quite different in tone from the first, but not disconnected; I saw it as a structural and tonal representation of the sort of all-consuming love depicted in the film - sunlit and buoyant even during trying times at first, and then darkening into a winter of hopeless, endless, often bitter longing.) 

Both leads rise to the challenge of bringing this complex, messy material to life. Dhanush, a celebrated actor in Tamil cinema, delivers one of the most compulsively watchable lead performances that I've seen in a while. He reminded me at times of a young Kamal Haasan (especially in a scene that directly nods to Sadma) and a young Shahrukh Khan, but really, he is unlike any leading man I've seen in Indian cinema. There isn't a thing he can't do. He is funny, scary, pathetic, charming, moving, moony. His dancing is a wonderful thing to behold. He makes heartbreak almost audible. Hindi is not his strong suit, but he manages to land profane one-liners  (the one about rubbing a snake on one's backside had me in splits) with merry aplomb. He managed to keep me rooting for Kundan, often in spite of myself. 

Sonam Kapoor's role is less crowd-pleasing, but it is also one of the best parts a young actress has gotten to play in recent mainstream Hindi movies. I rather enjoy Sonam, both offscreen and frequently on it, but even I wouldn't argue that she's shown major acting chops in anything prior to this. At her best, she was charming; at her worst, she could be flat and unmemorable. Despite the praise she's getting from film critics (perhaps for the first time since Delhi-6), I was not even a little bit prepared for the kind of work she's done in Raanjhanaa as Zoya. This is a breakthrough performance reminiscent of Aishwarya's in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam; one did not expect it and did not think it possible. 

Rai uses Sonam's plaintive little-girl voice and open, childlike smile to great effect in the scenes where she's playing a high-schooler. But he manages to work that air of entitlement, a brattiness of sorts, that one often sees in Sonam's acting (and public persona), into grown-up Zoya as well. Self-assured in her willowy glamour initially, Sonam clues us into Zoya's cocquettish little manipulations, her barely concealed delight at being desired (she has a great moment when she can barely suppress a smile as she walks away after slapping Dhanush), her great frustration at not getting her way with surprising facility. If Zoya in the first half has notes of Isabel Bradley and Daisy Buchanan in her personality, the post-intermission portions harden her brittle charms, and Sonam's work gets even more interesting. I wondered if I was grading the actress on a curve, but my companion, who doesn't understand Hindi, told me that he was impressed by how much venom she was able to get across just with those lovely, animated eyes. 

Together, Dhanush and Sonam are oddly electric. He sees nothing but her, this tall, well-off, educated Muslim girl who is clearly not meant to be his. She is amused, horrified, repelled by him, but can't quite do without him either. When he holds her, it looks painful, like he is trying to absorb her into him. We know that nothing good can come of love this misguided. But that doesn't make this film, with its big, bruised heart and its funny-sad-lovely ending, any less great.

Summer Lovin' (Part Two): On Why I'm looking forward to "Raanjhanaa"

1) It looks good. Shot on location in Varanasi and Delhi, Raanjhanaa has the specificity of place and culture that I enjoy so much. The costumes and makeup are just right (Sonam's JNU student-activist wardrobe is perfect, and she makes for a surprisingly convincing high school kid in the trailer), and the Banaras scenes are alive with color and flavor and the hustle-bustle of smallish-town India. Aanand L. Rai did a beautiful job of creating lived-in, authentic-seeming worlds in Tanu Weds Manu, and it looks like he's done it again in Raanjhanaa.

2) It looks fun. I often complain that a lot of the mainstream Bollywood films - even some of the really good ones - that are set in upper-middle-class Mumbaidon't sound quite right. It invariably seems to me as if the characters depicted in those films would be speaking English, or English spattered with casual Hindi, if they existed in the real world.When they set forth on pyaar and deewangi, it usually rings a little labored, almost as if  the lines were thought and written in English and then translated to Hindi. Filmmakers who set their films in a milieu in which the people actually speak Hindi don't face that problem, and they get to write some clever, funny, crowd-pleasing lines. Kangna's Kanpuriya firebrand had the most hilariously caustic dialogue in Tanu Weds Manu, and  here, too, there's plenty of humor to be found in the writing. The trailer is filled with stuff that got me chuckling. When Dhanush's friend points out to him that he'll be eating firni at his beloved's walima if he doesn't confess his feelings to her, it cracks me up. It isn't mithai at a shaadi. It's firni at a walima, and it's just right. When he tells the rickshaw-wallah, "Don't take money from her; she's your bhabhi" line? I can't tell you how often this desi kid has heard some posturing small-town cousin say that IRL.

3) The soundtrack is gorgeous. Guys, I'm not kidding. For the past couple weeks, I've been listening almost exclusively to the Raanjhanaa OST (except, of course, when I am listening to the Lootera OST), and it is a thing of beauty. Tum Tak and the title song have a kind of soaring, romantic joyousness to them, while Aise Na Dekho and Nazar Laaye Na are the sort of quiet, amber-dipped Rahman tracks you play on a lazy afternoon drive by the lake. I want to see how these beautiful songs come to life in film's narrative.

4) The cast is exciting. Dhanush, in the little I've seen of his Tamil outings, is a marvelously intense actor. Here, he's doing his best lovelorn swain, and he's doing it with early-SRK levels of charm. He also seems to have worked very hard to get the Hindi right. (The accent is there, but they've kinda written an explanation for it into the plot.) And then there's Sonam Kapoor. Sonam gets a lot of hate online, but I am just gonna go ahead and tell you that I . . . might love her. That's right: I'm a Sonam Kapoor apologist. I mean, she's not a great actress by any means. In a couple of her films, she's not even good. (Like, come on. She was basically playing herself in Aisha, and she was the weakest part of the cast there.) And that nasal, entitled voice can get a bit grating. But she's not bad in that lifeless, wooden way that Katrina Kaif is. And I found her charming in Delhi-6 and Mausam, both movies that required her to get away from her public persona and play what Times of India's website will call "Indian" characters, in low-key, extensively detailed, relatively un-filmi settings. (Of course, Mausam eventually rode the express train to Crazyganj, but I digress.) She might not be the all-purpose Hindi film heroine, but she has an affable screen presence, and has a look that works really well in a variety of genres. (This doesn't sound like much, but think about it. How many leading ladies would look as convincing as a period-piece princess as they would as a cosmopolitan fashion-y type? Not too many, right?) I have high hopes for Sonam here. Kangna was a revelation in the richly-written part she got to perform in Tanu Weds Manu, and, judging by the trailer, Sonam gets to do more than just be the object of the male lead's affection in Raanjhanaa. Also, she is delightful in the flirting/squabbling moments with Dhanush, and there isn't really much we can do about that voice. The supporting cast looks stellar, too. Swara Bhaskar was Tanu Weds Manu's MVP, and should be cast in more stuff. Zeeshan Ayyub is hilarious, and might just steal this one the way Deepak Dobriyal stole Tanu. Abhay Deol can generally be relied on to deliver a solid performance (even though I get the feeling that he might think he's a better actor than he actually is.)

5) Tanu Weds Manu was so great. I've already mentioned seven million good things about that film, but Aanand L. Rai's debut feature is seriously underrated. I love how sweet Madhavan is in it. I love its unhurried pace. I love its idiosyncratic, warm-hearted portrayal of middle-class life in India. I love that the wild heroine isn't judged for drinking or smoking or having sex, but is called out, instead, for her inconsiderate behavior, and isn't tamed at the end. I'm hoping Raanjhanaa is just as good. But I was all misgivings-y about YJHD in the first installment of this little series, and I ended up loving it. So obviously I'm going to hate this one. Sigh.

On "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani"

(Spoilers! Not explicit ones, but still!)

Ayaan Mukerji's sophomore feature possesses a number of annoying traits that are standard-issue in lesser Dharma movies. The first half indulges in way too much of the cornball humor so beloved of The House That KJo Built. Here, these bits are mostly centered around a vapid firang named Lara; they are sporadically funny but never inspired, and feel uneasily written in, a little cheapening even. The background score is wall-to-wall and sometimes intolerable. We get the tinkly fairy sounds and the swell of the orchestra in a romantic scene, we get sound effects straight out of 2003 in a comic scene, we get a creepy-ass chorus of children going  ooh and aah in scenes of wonder and discovery. Also, the film gives us the tomboy-to-girlie-girl makeover that we've seen in both Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Student of The Year. (The latter turned the spunky, interesting best-friend character into a kurta-clad homemaker whose unnecessary transformation is apparently explained by marriage and childbearing. I don't mind a female character dressing in a more stereotypically feminine manner, and boy, does Kalki Koechlin work the series of outfits that could probably cost as much as one of hubby Anurag's productions. But why, in 2013, are we still making lesbian jokes about a girl who doesn't wear pink? And why does the shift in her look need to be commented upon, as if it were an indispensable, highly desirable change? What else, one might ask resignedly, can one expect of a film where the female characters have their legs out in several costume changes on an uphill trek, while the males stay fully clad. Ugh, am I right?

Now that I've completely convinced you that this film is the no-good, very-bad kind, let me admit that, despite the litany of quibbles I've listen above, I really enjoyed Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani. I know, you guys. I didn't see it coming either. The first half was pleasant , but rarely much more. Bookish Naina (Deepika Padukone) takes an impulsive trip to Manali with kids she knows from school, and falls for rakish Bunny as he expounds at length on his world-traveler ambitions. In the process, she loses the glasses, opens up, and learns how to have fun. It's basically a Disney Channel film with grown-up Bollywood stars, well-acted and travelogue-pretty. You worry that it is going to get worse, and you're going to be subjected to that insufferably played-out "love vs. everything else" conflict once again.
But, post-intermission, the film takes an unexpected turn for the better. It's as if Mukerji decided his writing needed to grow up just when his characters did. Bunny meets Naina again, eight years after the trek, at a friend's lavish destination wedding in Rajasthan. He's a travel journalist, she's a doctor. Amid the revelry - and there is quite a bit of revelry - sparks fly. 

In his tender debut, Wake Up Sid, Ayaan Mukerji kept plot minimal and unfussy, and patiently allowed his protagonists to find their place in the world. Here, too, the narrative is slight. Most of the heavy stuff happens offscreen. One of the characters loses a parent, another fails at making his passion project work, a third gives up on unrequited love and finds the requited kind. We don't see these life-changing moments happen, but we see how they've shaped Bunny and his friends. 

The early parts of the film didn't prepare me for how interesting the writing would get as the narrative unspooled. The initial reels tell us things they've already shown, and don't tell them in particularly original ways. Bunny waxes poetic about his love for traveling, calling it a "nasha" (addiction); his scrapbook, his wall-collage, and his own admissions have already driven home his globetrotting ambitions, though. Naina's love for Bunny is writ large on her face, but she, too, informs us in voiceover that she feels "ishq ka nasha." We get the sense, as one often does in these films about upper-class, westernized Mumbai youngsters, that the lines ought to have been in English. 

Thankfully, Mukerji mostly gives up on the clunky abstractions as the movie goes along. We now know who Bunny and Naina are, as do Bunny and Naina themselves; no more explication is necessary. Now the film lets its characters slowly rediscover each other, altered by eight years of experience. Bunny might be running away from significant baggage  on his voyages, but his choices aren't condemned. His friend Aditi (Kalki Koechlin, wonderfully unvarnished as usual) has made a surprising choice of her own, but, in a lovely revelation, we learn that her choice isn't a compromise. Naina's contentment with her life, her family, her medical practice is sweetly telegraphed; she doesn't need to, or want to, get away from her life, even for love's sake. Mukerji steers the film toward familiarly explosive filmi territory - a potential romantic rival (not Rahul Khanna, surprisingly) is introduced, the big wedding looks like it might fall apart at the mandap - and then calmly turns away. He isn't looking for explosions, and he isn't looking to punish his characters into an epiphany, either. Bunny isn't wrong for wanting to go places, and Naina isn't wrong for wanting to stay at home. They both know this, and they don't need to fight about it. They just need to figure all of it out. 

A plot this uneventful would be an interminable bore if the leads were flavorless. In a Ranbir Kapoor joint, however, you don't need to worry about the leading man's performance. By now we're all aware that Ranbir can do charming in his sleep. (Even the magnificent La Dixit, giving you your money's worth even before the film properly gets going, looks entirely delighted by his shenanigans in the rousing Ghagra number.) He is by turns glib and goofy. He flirts with everyone, he GQs it all over Paris, he sings, and dances his way through a series of songs that may not stand alone memorably, but look and sound terrific in the theater. But he is sharpest when the film asks more of him than easy likability. In the scene where Bunny finds Naina in dishy male company, Ranbir goes from pleased to pissy with an almost scary absence of effort. He also gets fine moments with Farooque Shaikh and Tanvi Azmi (Mukerji has a gift when it comes to writing and casting beautifully believable parents.) My favorite moment in the film is the one in which Farooque Shaikh, one of the all-time greats at onscreen geniality, says goodbye to his U.S.-bound son. This scene is saved for the end in a marvelously effective bit of non-linear storytelling, and it has an aching realness to it. Not gonna lie, I cried a little.

In my piece on why I was ambivalent about the film, I wrote quite a bit about why I was worried about Deepika Padukone's performance. But as Naina, Deepika finally manages to overcome the banality that has plagued her in many of her non-glamazon roles. It helps that this is a good part, not a stock love-interest role. Naina doesn't pine away when the love of her life leaves. She develops friendships, she builds a career, she buys a killer wardrobe of sexy lehengas and flattering salwar-kurtas. Deepika gets just about all of it right. She conveys Naina's initial tentativeness, her quiet sorrow at having lived a cloistered life, and the wonder of first love with such warmth that it isn't at all hard to empathize with her as we once did with Kajol in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.  She still acts better with that luminous face than with her voice, but her line readings here don't give you the impression that she painstakingly memorized her dialogue and is trying to say them just right. 

Deepika also generates tremendous chemistry with Ranbir. He plays it so that Bunny seems drawn to Naina even before she joyously finds her mojo (and killer white shorts) in the Balam Pichkari song. And who coud blame the dude when Deepika looks so radiantly moonstruck around him? When he pulls her in for a dance, and wants to hold her for five more minutes, it is both swoony and sad.

There is quite a bit that irked me about YJHD, but even more that surprised and impressed me. It is a pleasurable little movie that is determined to give you a good time while managing a surprising amount of depth and maturity. I kinda loved it.

The Bling Ring: Thoughts on Indian Celebrity Fashion at Cannes

There are two big celebrity fashion events that I look forward to every year. The first is the Met Gala. The Met Gala is legit. I live for the Met Gala. This is one red carpet where safe, foolproof looks are actively discouraged and celebrities are encouraged to let their fashion-freak flag fly. I love seeing timidly clueless celebrities giving their Joan-Rivers-approved sheath dresses and lacy mermaid gowns a miss for one night and trying their best to interpret the crazy/undoable theme. (This year, for the punk theme, SJP wore a mohawk-style headpiece and thigh-high boots. It was fantastic.)

The second big celebrity fashion circus I follow avidly is the Cannes film festival. The look here is movie-star glamour.  You've got to go big or go home. With yards of film stars and wannabes jostling for attention all over the Croisette, Cannes is the place to bring your biggest gowns, your biggest jewels, your most memorable fashion. And it's in Europe, which means the fashion is, once again, not as snoozy and safe as the typical Hollywood red carpet. 

The other great thing about Cannes is that I get to see Bollywood stars doing the hokey-pokey alongside international movie icons. The two fixtures on the circuit, of course, are Aishwarya Rai and Sonam Kapoor, who are ambassadors for L'oreal. I have a weakness for both these ladies, and this year, they were joined by another one of my favorites, Vidya Balan. Fun! 

The Sabyasachi Problem

As Sonam Kapoor pointed out in an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Vidya is not at Cannes to shill gowns or makeup, unlike Sonam herself. She is there as member of the jury, and she gets to do awesome things like chill with the delightful Christoph Waltz and be one of the first people to watch the latest collaboration between Ryan Gosling and Nicolas Winding-Refn.

But Vidya clearly didn't want to go unnoticed style-wise either. Her outfits, designed by Sabyasachi, seem to have been put together deliberately to attract attention and inspire discussion.

I have a lot of love for Vidya's first two looks at the festival. The red lehenga she wore on arriving in Cannes was simple and elegant, and the demurely understated styling worked perfectly with the outfit. The next look, a stunning white-and-gold saree, was also a winner, and, once more, the pulled-back-hair-with-neutral-face formula worked, though I'd have zhuzhed up the face with some color. Both looks were just a little unexpected, while being firmly within Vidya's style wheelhouse.

At the Great Gatsby premiere, however, Vidya decided to take things to a more flamboyant level, in a pale lehenga and a major necklace. The dupatta on her head became a major talking point. (For real. I've read comments arguing that by putting the dupatta on her head, Vidya portrayed India as regressive and "backwards." SMH. SMH so hard.) See, in theory, I love that she gave us drama. But with the veil and the volume in the lehenga and its big-ass border and the full sleeves and the Nehru-waistcoat blouse, it's all a bit . . . too much. And not too much in the wonderful Cannes way. It was a stuffy, visually unbalanced look, and it had no color in it. Instead of giving us Indian-princess realness, Vidya ended up in dowager raajmaata territory. My fixes? I'd have kept the dupatta on her head, given her softer hair, maybe a braid, gotten rid of the headmistress choli and replaced it with something that showed at least some collarbone and had shorter sleeves. Oh, and I'd have added some color to that gorgeous face. You've got to give her credit, though. She was working the whole "Her Serene Highness" schtick as well as she could.

The next day, at the Young and Beautiful screening, Vidya brought back the tight hair, the neutral face, and the Amish blouse, much to my chagrin. By way of drama, she added the nathni. Oh my god, the nathni. The nathni was the bane of the Bollywood-loving corner of Twitter for a millisecond. Do I hate the nathni? No. (Reminder: I love drama.) But that focus-stealing piece of jewelry did not belong on a woman who was wearing a madly uncomfortable-looking blouse and tastefully funereal makeup. It belonged on somebody else. We will get to who that was in a second. At any rate, this look would have been much better, nose-ring and all, if Sabyasachi had let Vidya's upper half and scalp breathe.

Let's talk about Sabyasachi for a bit. Sabyasachi is one of my favorite Indian designers. He makes gorgeous use of traditional textiles and motifs, and his clothes are a refreshing alternative to the glitter-gun-happy stuff that Manish Malhotra, that other Bollywood favorite, keeps spinning out year after year. But I am not sure if I'd have styled Vidya the way he did. (Call me if you wanna change things up, Vids!) Sabya styles his beautiful clothes in order to create particular characters and tell specific stories. This approach worked spectacularly when he took model and Miss India Kanishta Dhanker to Cannes. But Vidya is not a model. She is not a clotheshorse. Her appearances should have foregrounded her versatile persona - as an Indian actor and movie star in the 21st century - instead of the Sabya vision, as interesting as that vision may be. Sabya has said something to the effect that he wanted Vidya to look like a maharani at Cannes. That intent is evident. Does she look gorgeous, glamorous even? Absolutely. Could she have looked more her age, more herself? Again, absolutely. After all, this is a woman who has done a terrific job of sexing up the saree, wearing her woven silks with loose hair, scarlet lips, and plunging blouses all over Indian red carpets. I don't know if styling her with scraped-back hair, zamidarni-style blouses, and neutral makeup was the way to go, even if that may be Sabyasachi's favored look of the moment. It's not your moment, Sabya.

Thankfully, Vidya did Vidya for her next appearance. A delicious traditional handloom silk, a less restrictive blouse, more relaxed hair, and a brighter face. It wasn't anything we hadn't seen before, but it was a look Vidya owns like nobody else.

I didn't hate the red saree look at all, but if you're going to dress a 35-year-old woman like Gayatri Devi, shouldn't you dress her up like young Gayatri Devi? I mean, even the Maharani rocked a bob and short-sleeved blouses and flirty chiffons. Here, too, The Blouse That Ate Planet Earth took the look down a few notches. And a beautiful movie star at a film festival ought, I think, to avoid politician's-wife hair and makeup.

I don't think Vidya wore anything she should be ashamed of (not that anyone of us ought to be ashamed of what we wear, unless it has, like, hate speech scrawled on it, or is made of baby pandas.) She looked stunning throughout, and provided us with a bunch of memorable looks. I know she's perfectly happy with Sabya dressing her 24/7, but, as somebody who likes clothes and likes looking at Vidya, I'd love to see her switch it up from time to time. I'm not saying she needs to. But it'd be rad if she did. Anyway. You did good, lady. Now look fabulous at the closing ceremonies and shoot me a text about who won the Palme D'or.

Of Capes and Cake Dresses

Sonam, who was there only to model pretty clothes, brought her A-game. Sonam knows fashion. She actually collects and curates, and I have a feeling she isn't dressing merely to look presentable or attractive, but for the sheer love of the design and artistry that goes into beautiful clothing. She is unafraid to wear risky, polarizing stuff or to look a little ridiculous. Hence, her red carpet appearances at Cannes, for which she gets to pull archival pieces and to have things custom-designed for her, tend to be serious eye-candy.

DRAMA

She went big right from the start, in an Anamika Khanna saree with a stunningly dramatic sci-fi-y cape. And, of course, the nathni, which several people hated, but I LOVED. (If I'd been styling Vidya, I would have skipped the nose-ring once I saw Sonam wearing one. It's an unconventional piece of jewelry, and nobody needs to think Vidya effing Balan copied Sonam Kapoor.) Sonam knew that the nathni would be a focus-puller, so she wore no other jewelry, pulled the hair back, and let that great face do all the work. Sleek, chic, desi, and modern, all at once. You may love or loathe the look, but you can't deny its impact.

Enormous ballgowns are de rigeur at Cannes. In custom Dolce and Gabbana, referred to by the wonderful Shakila at GetFilmy as "the cake dress,"Sonam served up amazing gown porn. Despite the fit issues at the bust, this was another home-run. Sonam's makeup game has improved considerably in the recent past, and her face was just about perfect at all her appearances.

Queen of the Instagram Selfies

Before taking off, Sonam also worked an adorable Elie Saab frock at the opening dinner (expert dress-wearer Dita Von Teese wore the same dress a couple days later, and I'd say that she didn't wear it as well as Sonam), and repped her friend Shehlaa in an Indian-princess-gone-goth lehenga. The latter was perhaps her least successful look this time around. The hair was a bit off, and the lehenga (like quite a few of Shehlaa's clothes), while exquisitely embroidered and detailed, had a slightly dated silhouette.

I'd say the Kapoorlet totally won the red carpet, as she is wont to do. But then, as many will point out, it's not her style cred that's ever been in question. Ahem.

Return of The Face

Aishwarya has never been a fashion girl, and she has lately stuck to nondescript or totally hideous clothes for her rare appearances back on home turf. But she can be relied upon to really bring it at Cannes.* Ash is one of the queens of Cannes. She's been going for more than a decade, the photographers love her, and she always gives them something worth photographing. Also, she seems to really loosen up at Cannes. Gone is the Bachchan-bahu stiffness. She flirts, winks, blows kisses, and it's all fantastic.

When I heard Ash was wearing Abu Jani-Sandeep Khosla to Cannes, I was disappointed. Abu-Sandeep make beautifully embellished clothes that look splendid on women like Deepika Padukone and Shweta Bachchan. But they unfailingly put Ash in blingy tents that do nothing for the actor. Besides, I wanted Aishwarya in Elie Saab!

Thankfully, I got my wish, and Ash turned up at the Inside Llewyn Davis premiere in a delightful Elie confection. The hair was gorgeous (some wanted an updo, but I thought that the soft, burnished waves were rather lovely with the romantic gown) and her makeup, of late so heavy-handed, was dewy and charming.

Ash did wear Abu-Sandeep next, and it was my least favorite appearance of hers this time around. The long anarkali was actually much nicer than the ones they usually stick poor Ash in, but it didn't fall too well on her, and I thought that the center-parted waves just added volume to an already-heavy look. Her look in Sabyasachi was better, although I feel like we've seen this gold-on-black baroque-inspired lehenga saree with the headband a million times already. (Kalki owned the hell out of a variation on the look in Marrakech.) Ash fared better in the high-neck blouse than Vidya,  however.

A good-ish run so far, but the next look gave me the best kind of chills. I usually don't like satin/sateen, but Ash was a GODDESS in the teal Armani Privé. I adored the shocking fuchsia lips, the sculptural hairdo, and all the primo face she was giving. The woman gives such great face. Just look.

Sigh.

The gold Tahiliani saree at the AmfAR gala was on theme, and since the designer was being showcased in the AmfAR fashion show, it was a sweet way to show support. But I'd have swapped out the gold blouse for a different color. Too much gold. I feel like all the rich desi aunties will be replicating this look at the winter weddings. Also, I'd have let the hair down. Again, the face won the day for Ash. It just feels like forever since we've seen it, no? The makeup and clothes back in India are so overwhelming that the face just gets lost and one forgets how ridiculous it is.

Scraps and Ribbons

Amitabh Bachchan worked some Vegas style in a bedazzled tux at the Gatsby premiere. It was all sorts of cray, but dude's seventy, and he can wear whatever he likes. Nandita Das, member of the short film jury, stayed true to her easy, effortless personal style in a series of lovely, unfussy sarees and suits. Mallika Sherawat turned up for reasons unknown to me (a lot of starlet-types turn up at Cannes for no reason aside from partying on rich men's yachts, though. Have you read this? Shadytown.) She wore a few perfectly fine dresses, but lady's seriously lost her mojo. No vamping, barely any smiling - it's all a bit depressing, to be honest. Ameesha Patel wore a couple tired-ass Manish Malhotra lehengas that everyone in Bollywood has already worn, but looked nicer than she has in a decade.

GAH. As usual, I wrote way too much about way too little.** The gist of this Bible-length piece is basically that pretty people wore pretty clothes. The moral of the story is: add some bling to your facial situation. Total conversation starter.

* Except in 2003, when she went as jury member. Since then, though, she's had a pretty stellar run. But the showbiz media persist in their "fashion disaster at Cannes" tag for her. (Ever notice how reluctant they are about updating celebrity narratives, though? They're still doing stutter jokes about Shahrukh Khan. Darr was two decades ago. I know.)

** If you've stuck this far with me, dear reader, I swear solemnly on Sharmila Tagore's bouffant that coming posts will be short and succinct. Or, at the very least, shorter and succinct-er.

Summer Lovin' (Part One): Random Thoughts Inspired By "Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani"

I can't get enough of great Bollywood love stories. Like, literally. They don't make enough of those.

Straight-up romances have never been the staple genre in mainstream Hindi films. The love stuff has traditionally been one of the many spices in the masala blend. In recent years, there's been an even greater move away from romances. Action-comedies have been the big earners, and the love story at the heart of these films have generally been between the forty-something male superstar and his adoring audience. Karan Johar, that famed filmi miner of the heart, has lamented that there hasn't been an iconic Bollywood love story for this young century.

It hasn't been a completely dry spell, of course. Millennial audiences have annually gotten a successful, memorable romance-centric movie or two. Kareena Kapoor is probably super thankful that Jab We Met turned her career around in 2007, but the rest of us are pretty glad it exists too. Jodhaa Akbar (2008) is still spawning sepia-ed gifs of Ash and Hrithik doing some coy Mughal-flavored flirting on Tumblr. 2010's Band Baaja Baaraat gave us Ranveer Singh (for whom I thank the universe everyday) and one of the best onscreen kisses in Hindi film history.The divisive Rockstar (2011), but for Nargis Fakhri's woeful performance, was an excellent entry into the canon of Bollywood romances.

In 2013, however, we don't just have one potential breakout in the pretty-young-famous-people-falling-in-love-onscreen genre. We have several. Something happened in the past couple years that prompted a bunch of talented young filmmakers to decide that 2013 was going to be Bollywood's annus pyarabilis. (I wish I were more sorry for that phrase than I am.)  Audiences have already lapped up the soggy, weakly reviewed, song-heavy Aashiqui 2, the year's biggest runaway success so far. But things are only getting bigger and better in the coming months for love-lovers, and I'm excited? Is everybody else excited? Good. Now let's play this fun game where I speculate, purely based on their trailers and promos, on the quality of these films. First out of the gate is Dharma's Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, starring Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone.

If you were a desi kid back in the early 2000s, you might remember how exciting those big films, with the sangeet song and the party song and the gorgeous costumes and the huge stars (usually SRK), were. They used to come out during Eid or Christmas, and they were Bollywood's version of a tentpole. That sort of film has gone out of style over the years, and going by the first trailer of YJHD, I thought this film was updating that frothy, glamorously feel-good aesthetic, adding to it some youthfulness and self-awareness and subtracting some seriously iffy leading-man costume choices. The visuals looked crisp and glossy, the snatches of the soundtrack used in the trailer sounded awesome, and the cast looked like it was having a grand old time.

But with each subsequent promo has somewhat deflated my excitement for the film. YJHD is directed by Ayaan Mukerji, who made the winsome Wake Up Sid! with Ranbir in 2008. His debut feature managed to be that rare straight-rich-guy-finding-himself narrative that managed the feat of not annoying the crap out of me. The film was helped by a light, everyday-ish touch and Konkona Sen Sharma who, by virtue of being one of India's greatest living actresses instead of a standard-issue starlet, elevated Mukerji's slight narrative and generated some lovely chemistry with Ranbir.

YJHD of course has the far more conventional pair of Deepika and Ranbir. Ranbir seems to be playing straight-rich-dude-finding-himself again, except this time he's surer of what he wants to do. Based on the song promo for "Kabira" (a really, really good number), what he wants to do involves filming stuff* on moving vehicles in foreign countries while going from fulfilled to pensive. Am I the only one reminded of Saif in Love Aaj Kal's "Main Kya Hoon?" where he's all bright and Dharma-y in the beginning but goes all dark and Adajania-y by the end? A lot about this film reminds me of that relatively underrated Imtiaz Ali film, actually, but I digress.

The promos are Ranbir-heavy, and he's clearly bringing all his goofy charm. But I'm not sure how much I like prettified Ranbir anymore.**  He's much more interesting to watch, and certainly much more attractive, when he's a little rough around the edges. By now, I'm pretty certain that Ranbir is a top-notch actor, versatile, witty, and thoughtful, and I will watch him in anything. But this bit, where he tells Deepika's character how cool she is, while she stares at him, all lovelorn? It's clearly supposed to be incredibly romantic, but it doesn't work for me. It might even read a little condescending. Just to be clear, I think Ranbir's going to be great in this, I just wonder if this sort of role is now a bit too easy for him.

The trailer itself made me nervous about Deepika's character, "chashmish-Naina," who takes off her glasses and finds volumizing conditioner at some point in the movie, and becomes "Deepika-Naina" - as in, a super-hot Amazon with legs for miles. All the promos since then have highlighted Ranbir, to the point that, in the "Dilliwaali Girlfriend" number, Deepika's choreography is not much more than stalking around with her hands on her hips and wiggling her chest from time to time, while Ranbir does his charismatic, livewire thing around her. Cocktail proved to me that Deepika's acting could be as compelling as her movie-goddess looks, but I've also realized that she is painfully limp whenever she is cast as the ordinary girl-next-door foil to her leading men. Deepika is best when she is allowed to play magnetic, slightly wicked women who are hyper-aware of their charms and not afraid to exercise them. She's not a particularly rangy actress, but she's got star quality, and she shines when outfitted with the kind of role that lets her work her supermodel looks and preternatural poise. In fact, her best moments in the YJHD footage so far has been in those brief scenelets when she dances up on Kalki in "Balam Pichkari" and "Dilliwaali Girlfriend." The look she gives Our Lady of Kashyap in the latter is pure sex.***

At any rate, her role in YJHD seems to basically involve waiting around while Ranbir finds himself (I promise this is the last time I use this phrase), realizes that travelling around filming stuff on moving vehicles is no good when you don't have true love in your life, and comes back to her. Maybe she gets to marry Rahul Khanna for a bit while she waits. What I'm saying, in this tediously roundabout manner, is that a boring heroine doesn't make for a compelling romance.

You know what else doesn't make for a compelling romance, at least the Bollywood kind? Meh music. YJHD's music is far from meh, but it's got that overproduced Pritam vibe that makes it work very well in a trailer and less so when each song is heard in its entirety. (The aforementioned "Kabira" is kind of an exception.) To wit, "Balam Pichkari" sounds like the perfect song of summer - fizzy and irrepressibly catchy - when you listen to the bit in the promo, but the digitized, cleaned-up vocals get boring after a while if you listen to the whole song. There's almost invariably too much going on in Pritam's music; he can craft an crazy earwormy, dance-ready tune, but his penchant for those generic EDM production values keep at bay a certain sweetness and earnestness that you need for the soundtrack in a film like this.

Even the way these songs have been filmed lacks a certain vim, a certain imagination, a certain "bigness." KJo gets a lot of flak for a lot of things, but people don't realize how boss he is at doing things not a lot of other filmmakers can't do, like filming the shit out of a song-and-dance number. His films pop on screen like few big-budget Bollywood productions. Even the choreography here is a little . . . lacking (except for one notable exception, which I'll get to in a bit.) Ranbir is a great dancer, and I get that the film is about him, and that Ayaan and he are best friends, but if you've cast Deepika Padukone in your film, let her dance, for Helen's sake. Let her dance!

What I feel about the songs is basically what I feel about this film in general. I like how it looks, but I feel like it could have been so much more. I want to watch it, but I know I could be much more excited. I wish it did more with its superficial trappings (Manish Mallhotra, how dare you give Deepika the low-rent version of Bebo's K3G sharara? I mean, she looks amazing, but still. Be less lazy, Manish Malhotra. Oh, and tell your nephew not to eff up Bebo's new movie.) I wish the narrative seemed a little a little bit less familiar, or at least treated in a less familiar, more heartfelt manner.

Wow. I've gone pretty hard on this film without even having watched it. But I'll happily eat crow if it proves me wrong, and subverts the slight genericness of its promos into something clever and moving and original. I want it to succeed! I want it to be good! I really do!

Anyway, YJHD has one feature that is worth the price of a ticket, several times over. Behold.

Seriously, I will watch a film with Mimoh and Ameesha Patel in the lead if it means I get to see Madhuri Dixit in all her queenly glory.

Next up: I get all judgy about Raanjhanaa. Everybody hates Sonam Kapoor. Do I hate Sonam Kapoor? We'll find out.

*What's with Ayaan's protagonists and cameras? Let's have a hero find himself in accounting or plastic surgery next time, 'kay?

**His eyebrows and hairline have been manicured and, er, refreshed a little too aggressively. Not the best look for him.

***So Deepika totally has better chemistry with her female co-stars than her leading men, right? If Cocktail were all DPad and Diana, I'd have liked that film SO much better. Also, the Koffee With Karan interview with Sonam was crackling. Like, they were finishing each other's sentences. I will always mourn the premature demise of that promising frenemyship.