I love this phase, this transition in
Indian cinema. No, it’s not drastic,
its not sudden. But it’s there, its
fresh, and it’s happening. And this
year has seen this change rather
repeatedly, across genres. There has
been bold cinema, like No Smoking
though it was on the quirkier side;
there have been movies like Blue
Umbrella, Manorama: Six Feet
Under, Johnny Gaddar, which
were different and cannot be called
commercial successes but were all
wonderful movies, and more recently
there were Jab we met and Om
Shanti Om, which were huge
commercial successes and yet great
movies. And now we have Aaja Nachle,
which is again, a commercial movie,
but yet, largely stays away from the
regular Bollywood masala.
Madhuri Dixit makes a comeback, even
though she was not really gone. That
smile is still there, and it still has
the same effect it used to have back
then. It makes you smile with her.
What is even better is, that this
movie has her in the lead. So, you get
to see more of her, throughout the
movie, and make you wonder why didn’t
they do something like that before.
Diya (Madhuri Dixit, superb!) is a
trained dancer who eloped with her
white lover to The States a few years
ago, from her small town in Madhya
Pradesh. It was naturally a big
scandal, and caused her parents to
leave town, into anonymity. One day,
Diya gets a call from India, informing
her that her Guru is dying, and wants
to see her one last time.
Diya
arrives with her daughter, but is too
late, and the guru has passed away,
but not before leaving her a video
message (this was largely unnecessary,
because you ask yourself that how a
desolate guru would have managed that,
but we ignore it since it’s a Yash Raj
film) urging her to save Ajanta (not
of the Ajanta-Ellora fame, but a dance
school) since its defunct since she
left, and is about to be demolished.
Diya is determined to save her former
school and arranges a meeting with the
local M.P (Akshaye Khanna, being his
usual annoying self, but the movie is
not about him) who wants to make a
shopping mall, replacing Ajanta.
The
M.P. makes her a deal: try to make the
town want to save the school, by doing
a show with all the characters
consisting entirely of the
townspeople, in two months' time. Diya
takes up the challenge and starts
doing her publicity rounds.
Needless to say, the movie has a happy
ending, since this is a Yash Raj film.
So, I won’t waste any more words,
giving out the rest of the story. What
I will say, is that the casting this
time, is god, after a long time, in a
YS movie. The movie has Raghubir Yadav
(seen after a long time, as endearing
as always), Konkona Sen (cuter than
ever), Kunal Kapoor (hmm…), Vinay
Pathak (consistently good), Sushmita
Mukherjee (again, seen after a long
time, and doesn’t disappoint), Ranbir
Shourey (OK), in the lead roles.
Yet, the movie is not devoid of its
shortcomings: the dilapidated Ajanta
is converted overnight into a grand-Yash-Raj-style
set, numerous extras come out of
nowhere to assist in most of the dance
sequences (and they are far from being
small-town), and some of the
characters are too clichéd.
But
still, the movie largely prevails
because of the superb choreography,
controlled performances by most of the
actors, a good musical score, and
well-placed dialogues. The film may,
or may not be a large success (since
it does not have a regular, prominent
theme), but is wholesomely
entertaining. Mostly, watch it for Ms.
Dixit and her smile, which is back,
and we will hopefully see more of it,
and the superbly choreographed songs.
Though, I’d say here, that if it
weren’t for Madhuri Dixit, the movie
would have been unbearable to watch.
‘nuff said.
