There he goes bringing up Babi, again

Woh Lamhe
Cast: Shiney Ahuja, Kangana
Direction: Mohit Suri
Rating: ***

The jerk smirks. Manipulating a movie heroine to disgrace herself at a flashmatazz do, he hits the front pages, taunts her into accepting a neon-realistic movie, and hello, is even plastered all over the cover of  — no, no, not Newsweek or Time — but Fime.

Welcome to Woh Lamhe, the world of Mahesh Bhatt-Parveen Babi seen earlier in Arth and Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee. To be sure, the producer is in a self-flagellating mood. And as long as the screenplay sticks to his exposition of guilt and regret, Babinama is strong, scorching stuff.

In fact, director Mohit Suri prompts you to care instantaneously for the mind-ravaged Sana Azim (Kangana Ranaut). Yeah she smokes, drinks (none of the men do!), hovers a shaving blade above her wrist and believes that every part of her body is “bought, sponsored”, you know the golden goose syndrome.

In fact, Mum Azim (Lacy Dupattas) even haggles over Rs 600 missing from her weekly hafta. Now, our wannashine director (Shiney Ahuja) exploits her to the hilt, kisses her a la Emraan Hashmi..but life has to move on. Right? Wrong. Our heroine is declared a “paranoid schizophrenic”, constantly imagines that she’s being stalked by a Ram Gopal Varmaesque bhootni and so..well needs psychiatric treatment. So far, the high drama is confessional to the point of being auto-critical. Wonderful.

But what is it about our movies that quite frequently  they sag-sag-sag post-intermission? Moreover, now director saab is depicted as chocolate-sweet, the heroine is rushed off to Goa and you want to drown your sorrows in feni . Hic.

A restaurant scene, in which our Sana throws a flaming fit, is ineptly directed — where did the waiters and musicians vanish, please? As for the Rs 600 mum, the creepy movie hero (albeit, Shaad Randhawa in a striking debut), financiers, friends and doctors, they’re all reduced to kooky caricatures. Eeee.

The dialogue is littered with metaphors about dew drops and sand castles. On the positive side, count Pritam’s excellent music score, Bobby Singh’s super-cool camerawork and the recreation of the “Bollywood” studio atmosphere.  Quite clearly, Shiney Ahuja is one of the most sensitive and subtle young actors on the scene today. Kangana Ranaut is first-rate, essaying a tough role with absolute conviction and fluidity. Here’s a goodish movie then.. which hopefully marks the end of Bhatt saab’s Babi trilogy. Amen.

Croissants anyone?

Quest
Cast: Mrinal Kulkarni, Rishi Deshpande
Direction: Amol Palekar
Rating: *

Quite a paheli, this.

Amol Palekar and writer Sandhya Gokhale strive to inspect what happens when a long-married woman discovers that her husband is a homosexual /bisexual/whatever. Result: the wife cries, the husband cries even more, and the male “woh” brain-fries. 

Ooh, Mother Theatre (Vijaya Mehta) recalls that her husband was a cad too, a benign stalwart (GP Deshpande) peruses a Freud paperback and the dialogue crackles with such lines as, “My life has been ripped off its rose-coloured glasses.” More wildly, sexual preferences are compared to the difference between croissants and sandwiches.

No, no, this can’t be happening. Although the screenplay may have picked on real life touches and attitudes, the result is confused when it doesn’t sit on the fence over the issue. 

Incidentally, the English language version is a giggle..perhaps the Marathi take is easier on the ears and the sensibilities.

Bottomwhine: Quest is a huge disappointment.

khalid@dnaindia.net