In the midst of sprinkled stardust and celebrations, a new star is born but
alongside is also the display of emotional instability. Hidden behind all the
glamour are calloused and hurting emotions. The fall and rise of two artists in
love but contrasted by emotions, fate and their respective approaches to life,
the film is about how one comes to terms with life and the other does not.
To the uninitiated, this is just another love story of an alcoholic singer who
has fallen a prey to liquor. It is about his downstream course. To the informed
it is that musical magic that swept Bollywood and gave us awesome experience
and show cased the amazing talent of Amit Suri, Mithoon, Ankit Tiwari, Jeet
Ganguly and the stardom of Aditya Roy and Shradha.
Life, love and success can be difficult to handle. No matter how much one
contributes to self-destruction, a chanced comment or a designedly wicked
statement from the schadenfreude could trigger off that explosive fatal moment.
Surely our cinema, our life style, our emotional show casing away from have
moved away from the 1970s. Aashiqui 2 is thematically a part reiteration of the
clash between two musicians made memorable in Abhimaan. The altered
sensitivities notwithstanding the box office acceptance of A2 is a clear thumbs
up for the tale of failure, fractured egos and skewed emotions specially in the
context of the world of glamour. Director Jaya Ravindra makes a very faithful
remake of the original product. Arguably music was the main stay of the Hindi
hit. The film maker decides to not labour in that area and get the music form
the original. One very vital factor of the film is thus taken care of. He could
not have asked for better. He does not. The screen chemistry of the lead pair
in a film of this kind is very pivotal. Here it is completely awry. The lead
pair fail and fail miserably to translate the crucial emotional facet of the
film. With the pivotal succour going amiss the film turns morbid and drags its
feet to the inevitable conclusion. Sachin Joshi plays Raghav Jayaram the
alcoholic singer who knows that his sharp decline from showbiz is inevitable.
In the course of one of his drinking binges he runs into Gayatri Nandan (Nazia
Hussain) a singer at a local Bar in Goa and not only sees unmatched talent in
her but also falls in love with her. Soon he starts promoting her to Uncle
Shravan (Rao Ramesh) and Gayatri becomes the sensation he hopes and predicts
she will be. However his alcoholism creates huge social and emotional problems
leading to fissures in the relationship. Sachin Joshi looks more dazed than
drunk. Also physically looks too well fed for the role. Sometimes gifted actors
overcome their physical gait with the power of their performance until the
likes of Shabana and Aamir decided to physically get attuned to the demands of
the role. Here however the disparity is not just visible but glaring in
inadequacy. Nazia Hussain goes blank whenever she is required to emote. The one
thing that can be said in her favour is that she dresses well, has good screen
presence and if she learns a bit of acting, has a reasonable future ahead.
What is film lacks is a spirit. What it needs from the audience is as the
lyrics would suggest: Spandinche hridayallu.
Rating: two stars
– : Acting by the lead pair
+ : Music and treatment of the tale.