On "Dolly Ki Doli"

(Spoilers ahead!)

Dolly Ki Doli could have been a terrific little film if the plotting were not so frustratingly facile. The idea of a young woman tricking men into marrying her and then making off with their money is rich with potential for both humor and intrigue, but the narrative rushes from one plot point to the next with such little concern for internal logic that the film starts feeling a little limp. Characters turn up at places, discover crucial information, and get out of trouble without the audience ever finding out how they did it. I'm perfectly willing to suspend my disbelief if the film asks for it, but this one isn't aiming for farce. The tone is, if not realistic, then at least fairly low-key. Thus the slapped-together, ramshackle plot feels egregious.

One of the film's pleasures is that it runs a brisk hundred minutes, and I don't think it should have been longer. But the makers ought to have lopped off a few slow-mo walks and wedding-montage bits and showed us in greater depth how Dolly and her gang make their cons work again and again without getting caught. There's a bit where someone tries to take a picture of Dolly on her phone but she hides her face, but how have they managed to stop people from taking smartphone pictures before this? Also, the film goes to great lengths to show us that Dolly avoids all physical intimacy with her grooms, not only making excuses to forego consummation but managing to convince them they shouldn't even touch her on the wedding night. I mean, your husband is probably going to want to at least make out on your wedding night even if you're on your period.

The film is not without its joys, though. Some of the funny bits are actually pretty, well, funny. Archana Puran Singh is especially hilarious as a domineering matriarch, and her caftans are amazing. (The costuming is pretty great throughout, and gives you an instant sense of who the characters are or who they're pretending to be.) The cast is stacked with wonderful character actors, who do a great deal with small, lightly outlined parts. The leads are all good (with the exception of Pulkit Samrat, who has very nice skin but whose acting is weak Salman pastiche). Rajkummar Rao sells the smarm and the heartache equally well; there are few young leading men working in Hindi films right now who can fashion such clever, subtle performances out of under-written roles. Sonam Kapoor still does her best acting in her quiet moments, since her voice isn't her strongest asset. (She is lovely in the beautiful flashback number, Mere Naina Kafir.) But she brings a sense of humor to her coy girl-next-door act as bride-Dolly, and gives "real" Dolly a casual steeliness that I was into.

I also appreciated Dolly as a character. Dolly is amoral, but she isn't weak or foolish. A strong female protagonist in a Bollywood comedy is rare enough that Dolly's character felt fairly radical to me. The narrative, for all its flaws, never neuters her or robs her of her agency, even when you are certain that it will. She gets a tragic backstory, but she states clearly that her past doesn't define her or explain her. I'm not particularly turned on by criminals and antiheroes in fiction or films, but there's a unapologetic patriarchy-smashing quality to Dolly's escapades that feels unusual and subversive. I wish the film built around her had been as interesting as Dolly herself, but I'll take what I can get, which, in the case of Dolly Ki Doli, is a moderately enjoyable diversion.

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.

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.