Out of step

‘Aaja Nachle’
Cast: Madhuri Dixit, Akshaye Khanna, Konkona Sen, Kunal Kapoor, Raghubir Yadav
Direction: Anil Mehta
Rating: *½

If your favourite weekend activity is renting Madhuri Dixit DVDs and sighing over her histrionics and heaving bosom, rush to the nearest multiplex this weekend. In her new film ‘Aaja Nachle’ there is every bit of the magic that made Madhuri the queen of the 90s, so what if the laugh lines are more pronounced and the make-up slightly thicker. Marriage and two kids later she can still dance up a storm and light up a room with her smile.

She is the life and soul of the film, the oasis in the plethora of overacting that most of her co-stars from Konkona Sen to Kunal Kapoor indulge in. And if that was not enough on the downside there is also the fact that the film is too long, the last sequence takes too much time and today’s movie watching youth couldn’t really care less about an actor who they didn’t idolise in the first place.

Madhuri is Dia who left her village in disgrace 11 years ago when she eloped with a visiting American photographer. She was the mainstay of the village dancing troupe overseen by the maverick guru (Darshan Jariwala).

Now her guru is dead but he has left a daunting task for Dia—to save the dance theatre from the clutches of the builders who want to build a mall there. Like in so many sports films before this, it is about overcoming the odds and the triumph of the human spirit. Here the odds are the builder (Irrfan Khan), his subservient wife Najma (Divya Dutta) and two wily politicians on either side of the political divide, but both wanting her to fail (Akshaye Khanna and Akhilendra Mishra).

On her side are the initially reluctant but later converts—dance participants Anokhi (Konkona), Imran (Kunal) and others.

But, in the process of scripting this very idealistic story in which good scores a resounding win over bad and all disruptive forces are made to see the error of their deeds, writer Jaideep Sahni seems to forget logic. Where do the dancers for Dia’s fist performance come from and how come all the arrangements including learning of the steps is done in a day?

Why does the number of pillars and their symmetry change from scene to scene? Why is Najma so cold towards Dia when she returns when there are no battle lines drawn yet? Why does the ultimate dance drama have so little dance (except Madhuri) and so much drama and where do the several set changes come from? Sigh.

Films about dance require exceptional music something ‘Aaja Nachle’ lacks except for the ‘Show me your jalwa’ song. Salim-Sulaiman are not at their best here.

‘Aaja Nachle’ is nostalgia-ridden—not the most favoured ingredient of the entertainment seeking audience today.

indumirani@gmail.com