Review of Luck by Chance (2009) by Prateek S — 09 Apr 2009

Luck By Chance is an open invitation to the uninitiated to come and see the Hindi movie industry from the inside, what makes it so amazingly kaleidoscopically tantalising and what makes it so heartbreakingly devastating. As seen predominantly through the eyes Vikram Jaisingh, an aspiring actor played by doe-eyed master Jack-of-all-trades Farhan Akhtar and Sona Mishra, a B-grade down-on-her-luck actress played by the brilliant Konkona Sen Sharma. Vikram, by a stunning stroke of luck at the hand of his then-girlfriend Sona wins the lead role in a Rommy Roly flick (the totally pagal movie producer/director expertly played by the Guru Rishi Kapoor) after the superstar hero (played to hilarious perfection by Hrithik Roshan) wants out for greener pastures.

Therein begins the start of Vikram's journey into Hero-ville, the nepotism, the cheating, the dumping of friends, the media frenzy, the accusations. Rife with cameos from the superstars of the industry, including an amazing soliloquy on doing things the hard way (which may also happen to be the righteous way) and remembering where you came from, from one Mr Shahrukh Khan.

Alls well that ends well, or maybe not, being that every face is as beautiful as the next and every actor as talented as the next. Here Zoya Akhtar (coming from a line of Hindi movie royalty herself)uses her inside info to paint a perfect scene of that the circus is really like- the pomp, the ceremony, the low times and the hangers-on. The name of the game here is, if you don't know people who know people, the rest of it is just luck by chance, and trust me, you will need lots of it...