Regressive and Repulsive

If you want to know what waste of time, talent and resources mean, please get a CD (I would not advocate buying a DVD, not even in the name of educating oneself) of “Laaga Chunari Main Daag”. How else would you account for the following?

• A reputed production house like “Yash Raj Films” venturing into making a remake of K Balachander’s “Arangetram” (Tamil) which was released way back in 1973
• Making a mockery of the talents of 3 of the all time best actresses Indian Cinema has ever seen- Jaya Bachchan (extremely weepy); Hema Malini (awfully miscast) and Rani Mukherji (struggling to make sense out of an ill written role)
• Poor characterization and inane dialogues to be mouthed by a host of talented actors from television and stage- Anupam Kher (absolute lack of conviction); Tinnu Anand (miserable part) and Sushant Singh (has to wear the same expression throughout)
• Bringing in 2 of the most promising youngsters of Bollywood and then cheating them (as well as the audience) by providing roles that are as good as walk over parts (Kunal Kapoor partly succeeds in putting in an endearing performance and Abhishek Bachchan wearing those designer suits and looking lost in the chaos that surrounds him)
• Taking up a story as old as the hills and trying to rehash it into something commercially viable by unnecessarily weaving in Zurich and Locarno into the narrative just to keep up the reputation of the production house (these parts are a big let down, notwithstanding the designer costumes of the heroines and the songs that are at best, immensely forgettable)
• In the process of narrating the story, making a mockery of the intellect and sense of the audience by providing them with those jaded dialogues and predictable script that could have helped had this movie been released in the 70's
• Trying in vain to recreate Varansi in the YRF studios at Mumbai and making it too glossy to look convincing in the whole bargain

I can go on and on and on. The two things that helped me sit through the movie were- a natural, straight from the heart performance from the ever dependable Konkona Sen Sharma and the lyrics, music and picturization of that extremely cute and fresh "Hum to aise hain bhaiyya" song (Lyrics by Swanand Kikire and Music by Shantanu Moitra)

Mr. Pradeep Sarkar- you were extremely promising in your debut (Parineeta) but this one is regressive cinema at its best!

Simply, NOT APPLICABLE!