Review of Aashiqui 2 (2013) by Sreesuhaas S — 30 Jun 2013

Aashiqui 2. For a person who only understands Hindi enough to fast forward the long conversations Preity Zinta has with Jaya Bachan in Kal Ho Na Ho and think "They exchanged feelings that are not crucial to the plot", I realized I could breeze through a movie like Aashiqui 2 (I did ask my friend what afsoos is, or is it mehsoos? No idea, man); It's a movie whose (or should it be which's?) plot outline was famously written in two crisp sentences by the scriptwriter, when he was high on weed and whose dialogue was written in an attempt to bring back the magic of the dutiful heroines the last of which we saw in Vivaah.I lied. I didn't watch Vivaah.

The hero. 5 minutes into the movie and I'm texting my friend like crazy saying the hero looks like a VJ on Channel V. She replies in the affirmative and I remember he was the guy who made fun of Loy ( of Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy)'s hair. Just a playful question. Loy's a big boy. He wasn't hurt. To see, the guy whose name I didn't yet remember play a heartthrob of millions of Indian youngsters reminded me of how there are no Indian popstars anymore. Pst. Off into the pile of reasons to indulge in fast food : the demise of Indian pop music. So he has his Lindsay Lohan routine of celebrity meltdowns : crashes his car, partakes in gallons of liquor, losing fistfights with paparazzi and a very beefy extra who sneaked in a couple of lines, that was his lucky day!; somewhere down the line meets the - for the lack of a better word, ingenue, who is the heroine whose name I haven't googled yet. The meet-cute looks like it was translated/inspired from a foreign language rom-com since the script sounded wooden and splintered.

Long 30 minutes short and a few misunderstandings skipped, the hero gets the heroine an audition,grooms her to be a playback singer and now she's nominated for a filmfare award that she wins and delivers the longest acceptance speech we never hear, because the hero's at the bar having his epiphany through the extras philosophising over the merits of his relationship with her. Oh, did I mention, the hero's an alcoholic? (also referred to as his first love in the movie, I'm not lying).

The rest of the movie can be summarised as volleying back and forth the rehab situation which only Lindsay lohan could transform into tabloids and reality-tv show ideas, and boy do I have a few complaints.

Aditya or Aaditya, for someone who looks like Aaditya, sidebar: the guy to be unanimously nominated for the best hair in the industry or possibly India, watch out Priyanka, because the Sunsilk ad money's found its next abode; to not even visit nippletown is mind-boggling! The film-makers could learn a few lessons from Karan Johar's movie Student of the year, the movie mostly cited in the history of Bollywood as the one with the most winks by man nipples in one song.

The heroine, who frankly, looks like Parineeti chopra took some advice from her cousin and got that nose-job done after all, seems convincing without the regular single-stream tears, but the smearing of lachrymal secretions all over the cheeks, yet hair styled always in the best cute configurations sunrise to sundown. She is even disarming in some moments up until her final gut-wrenching monologue that every feminist should listen to while climaxing during sex to instantly attain menopause.

Do I have an issue? I dunno, do I sound like a man who's a sensitive dad?

The music is only sub-par. I don't care for it, not even if the guy in the heroine's band turned out to Pritam's kin just slugging it out in the business for an acting gig. Not entertaining, but then, you ask Shreya ghoshal to sing a song and she could be murdering your grandmother with insults, hyperboling in swear words, reading out Rakhi Sawant's quotes and we'd believe the world is alright and we're going to wake up to a great tomorrow, so there's that.

Should you watch the movie? I suggest sitting in the front row and a taking friend you can guess plot twists with, because they are more like plot lamp-posts, you always see one before you turn the corner. Also because, the probability of being asked by a very gracious and good-looking man to please hush is low.

All in all, I'm not as disappointed as I might sound, but I have good reason for that. The only other hindi movie I watched this year is 3G.