Karthik's Calling

I wouldn't have seen the movie on a working day, had it not been for Ana who wanted to catch a film on a Thursday evening. Fair enough. I reluctantly dragged myself because after a tiring day, during which your digestion poses interesting dilemmas, I somehow managed to keep a straight face. But, my patience started to thin out when the usher, by his own clock, refused to let us in on time! Geez, talk about irony. Anyhow, the security upstairs at PVR Plaza, tried to act tough over a box of grapes. One cannot bring food or anything in a cinema hall, BUT! Not everyone is coming straight from home, you see. Some of us lesser blokes, are coming from our offices with long faces and tired brains, which obviously misses their scanners.

So, I told them that their worry is overrated in this context, and without the box, I won't go in. And, they allowed me to leave it with them so I can pick it up on my way back. Did anyone say jerks?

I quickly got settled into the movie from frame one because it begins on a note of total and complete isolation, which is by far, one of my picked themes for any genre. The sounds were very absorbing thanks to Baylon Fonseca (from Rock On!!, Rang De..., Dostana, Wake up Sid, and many more). He is quite a neat find, though at some places in the second half, which mostly kind of just dragged, the sounds weren't of any help.

The treatment of the story was crisp in the first half, but lost a bit of steam progressing towards the finale act. Since the screenplay mostly revolved around few characters, sound had a lot to do in terms of reflecting Akhtar's state of mind. And here, I think the director should have been more subtle rather than let shrill sounds break the poignant moments in the last few sequences. Here, the narrative of Shiffali Shah works nicely into the unravelling of the mystery (something I unravelled an hour before) with the effects, and colours.

Farhan Akhtar is a stolid actor, which works for him in characters that are sketched with layers of complexities. His portait of Aditya in Rock On!! again had a lot of passive mystery to it, which he could muster with a bit of grace. But, in some scenes here, he could have been a bit subtle without showing too much of twitching of skin, or generally paranoid.

Deepika Padukone looks tired in most frames, and she just can't bring herself to emote. Is it something to do with Om Shanti Om's success that she feels too confident and has given a fine impression to directors or are they just blind? I had read somewhere that Farhan Akhtar wanted a gorgeous girl to be opposite him. Wondering...

And, to sum it up, I had to rush back upstairs to fetch my box of grapes. A final note for the movie: keep your eyes open to know the mystery before it is unfolded on its own.