“Main keh raha hoon, main keh raha hoon, main keh raha hoon!” Everytime I watch a wannabe film on adult relationships..I remember this Kulbhushan Kharbanda (he is on the phone with his neurotic actress girl friend who wants to know if he has broken the news of their affair to his wife) dialogue from Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth.. still the most grown-up movie of them all, almost 30 years after it was made. And really, after the few indelible scenes in which Smita Patil’s Kavita, a schizophrenic heroine pops or rather chews sleeping pills, clings sickeningly to a married man, throws tantrums and lashes out at imagined threats and intangible fears, what more is left to say in cinematic language about the inner life of a woman who has it all but is hollowed out and afraid to be loved too much or too little? Right from the opening scenes where a trail of cloths leads us to Kharbanda and Smita in a hotel room play acting like two old people who have spent a life time together, there is a flesh and blood intimacy that makes you recoil even though there is no- in- your- face nudity. Compare that to the love making scene in Heroine where the protagonist, always the actress.. is filming herself in the throes of passion. This is finally the biggest problem with Heroine. The characters never stop acting. The scenes look staged. The camera never stops rolling. Life never takes over.
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While Smita’s bi-polar Kavita went from being perfectly normal to suicidal in a heartbeat and made you cringe with her hysteric neediness, a breakdown in Heroine is just the popping of some nameless pills, glugging endless drinks and a runny mascara.
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This ain’t Bhumika where Smita Patil (yes, again) pulsed pain as the scarred soul being tossed from one exploitative relationship to another, in a blind hunger to find a centre, an anchor. This definitely ain’t Kagaz Ke Phool that summed up what fame and success are worth in filmdom. This is not even Luck By Chance where the inner workings of a messy, heartless world were revealed to us with sense-of-humour and warmth and humanity.
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The issue is not Kareena Kapoor but the empty shell she is expected to fill up with a performance without enough stuff for her to channel. The script gives her physical cues. No subtext. Also there is something incorrigibly pristine and wholesome about her. No matter how many times we see her barefoot and hysterical, her face belongs to her, not the character. She never ever looks dirty enough, broken enough because unlike The Dirty Picture, she is not playing a fleshed out, all consuming character who goes from innocence to degeneration. The notes of her performance range from, “I am in control,” “I am losing it,” to “I have lost it,” to finally “Hit rock bottom..the only way now is up.”
**
She is a good actor, this girl. We know that already but even though she goes through the motions, her undeniable beauty even when she is supposedly looking ugly and wounded, is what arrests us, not her supposedly devastated inner world. There is that moonlit skin made for the camera and that glamour she can turn on like a faucet and her Mahi Arora is unfalteringly gorgeous in every frame and never ever manages to look over the hill as she is supposed to. She should be however given credit just for pulling off a film that has nothing going for it really.
**
Heroine for most part feels like a dress rehearsal for something real, something bone deep but never gets there. There is a passing nod to lesbianism, to scandals about much married heroes living it up in outdoor shoots, PR wars and manufactured controversies to stay in the news but it is becoming painfully apparent..this surface knowledge of worlds, Bhandarkar pretends to research before foisting their dirt on us. And really the premise that stardom is just about fame and the only way to deal with it is to escape it is half-baked. And nothing that he shows, reveals or pretends to shock us with seems deeply felt or experienced. It is just well..loud, tacky and one dimensional right from the home that the heroine lives and wastes away in to the homes and sets inhabited by the superstars.
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Also some of the visual references are in bad taste. The make up and hair of a star wife reminds you of a real star wife. And for someone who is supposedly an insider, Bhandarkar’s take on the film industry is not insightful but in the vein of a nudge nudge wink wink gossip monger. So we get to see how roles are edited when influential stars get offended, what happens when a fading star appears at a poorly attended press conference. The “guest appearances” at a wedding. The lovers who won’t commit. The favours extended to film journalists for covers. The cold blooded PR strategies. Nothing we have not heard of before. Also it is not without reason that the director steers clear of the most contentious secret of the film industry. The casting couch.
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Some of the only real moments in the film belong to Helen who plays a screen legend now deprived of her share of respect but has the graciousness and the courage to accept it. Otherwise, the film reminds you of Bhandarkar’s own Fashion and Page 3, Kangana Ranaut’s spiral in Woh Lamhe, a little pretend take on Chandni Bar and yawn..some film magazines you may have leafed through in a dentist’s waiting room. There are a few moments we are supposed to recognise and chuckle at. Like a heroine posing decoratively with a broom in a Clean Mumbai drive. Or discussing her downhill career with an autosuggestion, “Kisi businessman ke saath mil ke ek IPL team khareed loongi.” Or when it is suggested that a fading actress should make the most of what is left of her by marrying an NRI. Or when a rival actress is cornered at the airport for fudging her age. Or when an influential star wife is considered as the final authority on who will star opposite her husband.
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Mahi’s interaction with her monophonic therapist, her shrill and affluent mother and with her lovers (A disinterested Arjun Rampal and an earnest Randeep Hooda) never ever goes beyond…like we said before.. a performance. And please, someone needs to take Bhandarkar to gay pride parades and force him to interact with some real people with alternate sexuality to know that they do not pretend to be gay or affect femininity or throw their hands in the air and make exaggerated expressions. It is offensive, this amount of ignorance in film after film after film.
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Nope, there is nothing edgy about Heroine. It is just another film pretending to be introspective while saying to its own reflection in the mirror, ” Makeup darling..makeup.”
**
Simply loved your review 🙂 Wish I could write like you
thanks pooja..you are the kindest 🙂
sharp, cutting review. no casting couch mention eh! so bhandarkar couldn’t get that close to life.
disappointed though. was looking forward to seeing it in the moghe multiplex