A Little New, A Lot Old
By Shambhavi Singh

A few college girls spent the weekend with me and insisted on seeing Salaam Namaste to get their full dose of the new and improved [read divorced] Saif. They abandoned the plan when homework beckoned but I carried on to see what all the hype was about.

When the mesmerizing effects of beautiful locales and even more beautiful people wore off I was disappointed to discover that this – chick flick (essentially!) – was a poor copy of Nine Months (starring a less cosmetic Julianne Moore and Hugh Grant).

The film opens with whimsical introductions to the characters, narrated affably by Abhishek Bachchan. Switzerland has finally given way to other locations and the story of Ambar and Nick is set in Melbourne, Australia. The commitment-phobic head chef of ‘Nick of Time’ Nikhil Arora [Saif Ali Khan] won’t let anything interrupt his laidback life. Nick's devil may care attitude gets him on the wrong side of an RJ (radio jockey) whose interview show he doesn't turn up for. Enter Ambar Malhotra (Preity Zinta), the vivacious host of a show at the "Salaam Namaste" radio station, who studies medicine when she isn’t cooing on the airwaves. Opposites attract, love blossoms (after much convincing), and the unlikely pair decide to share a house.

“Falling in Love. It's very easy to do. Being in love - now that's the tough part!” The promotional tagline sets the tone for the rest of the film.

Lyrics from Jaideep Sahni are neither refreshing nor cool. The hinglish mish mash makes one grimace. But I can see how the bubblegum pop may be catchy to some. Music by Vishal & Shekhar is nothing new, but light and foot tapping all the same; flavor of the month kind that would be blared from rolled down windows and clubs but recede into oblivion thereafter. Sunil Patel’s photography is beautiful. He captures breathtaking vistas that I cannot find enough adjectives for. Dialogues penned by Abbas Tyrewala take an admirable shot at realistic youth jargon. Okay, so it isn’t the melodrama of the 70’s but with an obvious FRIENDS hangover its nothing Kal Ho Na Ho didn’t attempt [and do better!!] And in trademark Sharmishta Roy style the sets are look-but-don’t-touch-perfect. Simple yet aesthetic and funky, Roy’s mise en scene is almost too antiseptic, too cosmetic, too perfect lending the film a very plastic, Barbie appeal aptly reflected in the excessive make up worn by all actors.

Now that Aditya Chopra and his director Siddharth Raj Anand are ready to lambaste me for slander I’ll move onto the more positive aspects of the film. When I say positive, I mean the few superficial novelties that the film presents, relative to the run of the mill stuff being churned out by the rest of Bollywood. To me, it felt like a brave endeavor the execution of which was – much to my chagrin – half-baked.

You see a regular love story take a twist that keeps you in your seat past intermission. You see the director make some bold choices. You see what happens after the rose petals are swept away and you have each other to contend with. You see an Indian girl make ostensibly selfish choices and live life on her own terms even if it means doing it alone. You watch her struggle with the dilemma of pregnancy out of wedlock. You watch her choose a child over her personal ambition, without support from the father – and hold your breath – she isn’t being maligned for it. She isn’t relegated to the nether depths of hell for premarital sex. You watch her tummy grow while she entrenches herself in yoga, craves the token Ben & Jerry’s, Belgian Dark Chocolate ice cream, and attends lamaze classes. And you think finally Bollywood has crossed over into the new millennium. Until you remember it’s been done before. It always seems easy to import Hollywood stories, but as this film proves the final outcome is often not thought through and leaves much to be desired.

Javed Jaffery puts in a guest appearance as the couple’s, what I can only imagine to be, ABCJ [Australian Born Confused Jaat] landlord. Except he wasn’t even born there so what’s his excuse? The sequences border on risqué what with references to S&M sexual encounters and male masturbation. But it gets a bit tedious after the first few “egjactlies”.

Soon the humor falls flat and you hope something will justify the emotional investment you have already made [you never learn!!]. In all fairness, I enjoyed the drama between Ambar and Nick. Those are the meaty parts I savored. The tension is real and palpable. The most hysterical fights happen over the most mundane things. Ask one who speaks from personal experience. But the pregnancy is horrendously fake and of course reminiscent of Rachel’s [Jennifer Aniston – FRIENDS] peeking belly in her last trimester. [By now it is pointless to even pretend I haven’t seen EVERY single episode!!] What is even more incredulous is Nick’s unabashed insensitivity towards his obviously pregnant ex-girlfriend. I know an axe-murderer who might be more supportive and considerate.

I know, I know, suspension of disbelief – key to enjoying a Hindi movie. But, I would have liked to seen a deeper exploration of the characters as they marinated in their respective dilemmas. Some explanation for their choices; some motivation for their decisions. In the delivery room scenes towards the end Nick asks Ambar to marry him. [Of course he does. What did you think? Bachche ko baap ka naam to dena parega. Now, the Rachel-Ross type arrangement just won’t cut it.] And when Ambar asks Nick what has changed in nine months, sadly enough her question remains unanswered.

You may think I keep harping on realism and asking for too much from Hindi cinema. As someone who grew up on candy-floss fare and modeled adolescent fantasies on the annual Yash Chopra release – I am not one to over-intellectualize masala entertainment. But I ask that it at least touch an emotional chord somewhere. I KNOW IT CAN BE DONE. I guess you shouldn’t have to try too hard.

Verdict: Fun time pass, but I wish I had waited for the bootlegged DVDs to appear on the market and saved my $10+. Or maybe I should have taken more friends so we could all partake in snotty remarks and share the condescending guffaws. You will commiserate with me when you will discover that in fact, the bloopers track at the end is funnier [Saif: Unplugged] than the entire film.