Friday, April 18, 2014

First day, firrrrrrst show

For the many people who asked me how I liked 2 States.

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P and I were at Prasad’s at 8.30am today, fairly excited. Many young people sat on the steps outside – as we reached the entrance, the security man apologetically blocked our way: “Abhi entry nai hai, madam.” So early, the cinema hall hadn’t opened for the day’s business. This was a new record, even for us.

But the need was desperate. P is off to foreign shores this Monday – this may be the last movie on desi soil for a bit. Our movie plan was last-minute and Prasad’s’ 9am show had only a few lone tickets scattered here and there. “Never mind,” we told each other. So we bought the eats, waved cheerfully and made our way to our seats in separate rows. But such a long history of watching films together – our reactions were similar too. Which is:

There must be something about Chetan Bhagat’s books that make them very translatable into theatre and celluloid. A solid concept or plotline, perhaps, that others can clothe well? This must be the third such film? Three Idiots, Kai Po Che and now 2 States. Something about relatable milieus, relatable people.

I haven’t read him at all though I know, of course, that he is the bête noire of literacy critics. They can’t forgive him his mediocrity and they CANNOT forgive him his success. But I saw a few promos for this film before I saw it, and found a good number of the commenters talking familiarly of the characters, glad that particular passages in the book had made their way to the film... they seemed fond of the book they had read. Bhagat must be doing something right.

Lovely look they gave Alia Bhatt – kohl and light lip colour, fabulous street wear... there was something radiant about her in this film.


I found Arjun Kapoor’s droopy eyed portrayal of Krish just so – unobtrusive but just this teensy much blah. Great to see Amrita Singh and Revathy as well. I liked Ronit Roy, though P said he was stereotyped (on the lines of Udaan). Sau baat ki ek baat: a fresh, non-filmi film.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Sheetal !! I'm going for the night show dragging along my reluctant daughter. No tickets available and I cant believe I used all the influence and contacts I could muster to get those elusive seats. Asked for 3 and ended up with 10!!!
Hope its worth it. Who is P btw ?
P.S To post a comment i need to prove myself says the post script :)))

Sheetal said...

10 tickets! Are they going waste or are you now mustering a crowd as well? It's nice, but I don't know if it's worth ten tickets :))
P's identity? It's a mysterious creature - I will inbox identity with an auto self-destruct code.

PS. Word verification? That's to put off spam bots but I'd hate if it dissuaded you.

Anonymous said...

ooooooh oooooooooooooh i'm a mysterious kreacher! loving it!

-P

Anonymous said...

oh, and to be sure, i did like ronit roy very much... just that the character reminded me of the dad he played in udaan.

-P