Hyderabad Blues 2 Movie
Review :
 |
| Director
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Nagesh Kukunoor
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| Starring
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Nagesh Kukunoor, Jyoti Dogra,
Tisca Arora |
|
All right, the good
news first. Nagesh Kukunoor's "Hyderabad Blues"
sequel is just the appetizing stuff we were all hoping
for.
After his grossly underrated
"3 Deewaarein" last year, Kukunoor needed
to return to his roots. The small but engaging film
takes capricious semi-satirical swipes at middleclass
mores.
Varun Naidu hasn't changed
since we last met him six years ago. Still toothy and
a bit flustered by the great Indian chaos, the most
radical change in his life since we last met him is
the dissolution of his green-card status.
If the original film
celebrated the otherness of the foreign-returned dude
with an attitude, "Hyderabad Blues 2" (HB2)
celebrates his oneness with the spirit of chaos in Hyderabad.
The backroom jokes and
the all-boys' babble over a game of cards are among
the highlights of HB2 - arguably the smartest, sassiest
sequel this country's cinema has produced.
I don't think any film
has so effectually been able to capture the spirit of
corny, lascivious but innocuous camaraderie among male
friends as they discuss - what else? - women and sex,
in that order.
Back home there's Varun's
strangely disaffected-looking wife Ashwini (Jyoti Dogra)
pining to experience birth pangs. Her plotting and planning
with best friend Seema (Elahi Heptoolah, delightfully
free-spirited) to get her husband to comply with her
fertility ambitions make the sequel far more 'sexy'
than the earlier film.
Sexy of course is a 'relative' term in "Hyderabad
Blues". The relatives come with the territory in
the couple's togetherness. The manner in which Kukunoor
portrays the whole familial scenario makes him a disarmingly
subverted Sooraj Barjatya.
"I don't know which
of you I should kill first," Varun rolls his eyes
at his parents after they mess up his one chance to
get back with his sulking wife.
Oh, didn't I say? The
baby plans in Varun and Ashwini's cosy life dissolve
into a divorce-like situation after Varun nearly commits
adultery! Or rather commits mental adultery. Whatever!
The voracious new floor
manager Menaka (Tisca Arora) in Varun's office, who
happily admits she has 'made a career' out of seducing
her bosses, gives Varun a peer into her cleavage. And
a disgruntled staffer - pulled up earlier for sexual
harassment - squeals to Varun's wife about the could've-been-adultery.
The rest of the story
follows a craggily comic and quirky path, with Ashwini
sending her repentant husband back to the US. It's a
bit of a been-there-done-it-all marital drama but played
out at an unusual octave.
We almost expect a last-minute
airport reunion between the couple. But aha! Kukunoor
is smarter than we think. He delays the inevitable.
The reunion comes at an expatriate cousin's traditional
wedding where, amidst the sounds of marital vows, Ashwini
sobs her sorry to Varun.
On the surface, HB2
follows all the rules of the traditional romantic comedy.
It has the chirpy chutzpah of a Woody Allen fable and
the musical aspirations of a traditional Hindi romantic
musical - the sporadic songs on the soundtrack are sensibly
introduced into the narration.
But beyond the savvy
dialogues and the raunchy-and-comic rituals of romanticism,
Kukunoor creates a world of lived-in characters who
seem to have been onscreen long before G.S. Bhaskar's
quietly inquisitive camera was switched on.
While Kukunoor is so
in-character as Varun that it's impossible to imagine
any other actor replacing him, Jyoti Dogra's performance
lacks sunshine.
Playing the realistic
versions of the roles that Anil Kapoor and Tabu did
in "Biwi No.1", Elahi Heptoolah and to a lesser
degree, Vikram Inaamdar, as the protagonist's friends
are delightful.
Heptoolah as the busybody
running home and a marriage bureau is such a natural,
we wonder if she knows what many Kukunoor's characters
don't: that life can be taken seriously only at the
individual's own risk.
Curiously, Kukunoor
introduces homosexuality into the picture a little late
in the day, when Ashwini's doctor-colleague -- in a
sequence that's somewhat contrived and badly acted --
confesses his sexual preference. "I'm not ashamed
of being gay. But it's the loneliness that bothers me,"
he says.
The character's confession
stands out in a film and a scenario where no one is
ever alone, or given the chance to be lonely. Swarming
with characters and teeming with remarks that replicate
the rhythms of the educated middleclass, HB2 is the
most likeable multiplex film in ages.
The hybridised Hindi-Telugu-English
dialogues, which were undoubtedly the USP of "Hyderabad
Blues", are the laugh-line in this charming tale
of heartbreak and laughter in the city of the Charminar. |
