Sunday, February 06, 2005

Saw Page Three

We saw Page 3 last evening.

Didn't like it for the most part with its repetitiveness and overdone attempt at establishing simple facts. Or charcaters. Was eqully distressed at the uniformly pedestrian acting, despite having a collection of competent actors in the list. And, at some of the conlusions.

But that said, the movie had a number of moments going for it. Surprisingly high number too.

Nothing beats the little gay spot though. Konkona di goes visiting her boyfriend, a wannabe model, and finds her friend, the movie make-up man, giving him head. Quite cool. And the coolness doesn't end there. Konkona's little spat with her friend (the make-up man) doesn't deal with the gay factor at all, but with the whole "I thought you were my friend, how could you steal my boyfriend" angle.

Quite laudable.

And it comes less than a year after I saw (snigger all you want) this movie called Rules: Pyaar Ka Superhit Formula. Terrible film on the whole, but again, with a number of superb moments. There again, the gay aspect was dealt with rather sensitively.

In Page 3, there was the other intelligently done bit about all these socialites - P3Ps - doing time with little street-boys. Well done.

And the other big thing about the movie was - though it was not central to the film and thus not dealt with at length, and therefore good - the little conflict between Konkona and Atul Kulkarni over the concept of good journalism and what makes a journalist a journalist. There was a spot of confusion within Konkona (she was playing a 22-year-old, so it's okay) about her responsiblities as a Page 3 journo. She wanted to do socially relevant roles within that capacity. Not always easy, and something the boss (Boman Irani - brilliant again) should have specified to Konkona.

Sandhya Mridul, meanwhile, was the brightest spot. Brighter even than Konkona, who is fast becoming a really, really competent performer.

But the movie keeps sagging because of the caricatured parties Bhandarkar wants to show again and again. He seems to have gone a step backwards from the well-intentioned but badly-directed Chandni Bar. And that's not good news. Never is that good news.

Black is what I am looking out for now...and, more interestedly, Finding Neverland.