FILM REVIEW: PARINEETA (2005)

Director: Pradeep Sarkar
Producer: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Cast: Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt, Vidya Balan, Raima Sen, Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Dia Mirza and Rekha (special appearance)
Music: Shantanu Moitra
Lyrics: Swanand Kirkire
Cinematography: N. Nataraja Subramanian
Screenplay: Rekha, Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Art Direction: Keshto Mondal, Tanushree Sarkar, Pradeep Sarkar

Radio Sargam Rating: 6/10

What’s so special about Bengali litreture that whenever our filmmakers find the dearth of ideas, they borrow some classic ‘Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’ or ‘Sharat Chandra Chatterjee’ literary work, make a quickie and bill it a masterpiece?

And despite being explored up teem times by a dozen noted directors the charisma of ‘Bong’ litreture remains intact, the ‘Rabindro Sangeet’ still remains unpolluted and ‘City of Joy’ remains shelved in ‘Mystism’. So what if it was fifty years back when legendry Ashok Kumar decided to give another novel of Sharat Chandra, ‘Parineeta’, a classy touch, and present it on silver screen. He made ‘Parineeta’ with the help of director Bimal Roy and that film is still remembered for its strong portrayal of the lead character by none other than tragic queen Meena Kumari.

What struck everyone was the starkness of the stories, the simplicity of it all – something that debutant director Pradeep Sarkar’s ‘adaptation’ of Parineeta steamrolls with its shafts of light and a Calcutta permanently bathed in a Ray Ban afterglow.

Pradeep Sarkar’s maiden attempt ‘Parineeta’ may not stand in near vicinity of Ashok Kumar-Bimol Roy’s masterpiece but he along with his cast and crew deserve an acknowledgement for making a film that lingers in your mind even when it is over.

Shekhar Rai (Saif Ali Khan), the son of Calcutta’s most affluent industrialist Navin Rai (Sabyasachi Chakraborty) is getting married to a rich businessman, Tantia’s beautiful daughter Gayatri Tantia (Dia Mirza). But his heart is away, with Lolita (Vidya Balan) his neighbor and childhood love.

The story unfolds through a flashback where everyone discovers Lolita is an orphan who grew up in her uncle, Gurucharan (Achyut Potdar) house. Brought up in a typical bhadralok culture, she oozes ethics and etiquettes in her persona wherever she goes.

In her neighborhood lives Shekhar, her childhood friend. The love between the two is unspoken and often expressed in metaphors. She means everything to him and does everything that a wife or girlfriend would, right from drawing the curtains of his room in the morning to finding the right shirt for him.

But Shekhar’s scheming father has plans to usurp the property of Lolita’s uncle. Gurucharan, whose fortunes are on the downturn, has mortgaged the house to Navin. And when Navin Rai’s plans almost seem succeeding, comes in Girish (Sanjay Dutt), a London-based businessman who bails Lolita’s uncle out of financial crisis.

The mortgage is paid by Lolita’s neighbor’s brother Girish (Sanjay Dutt), who has fallen for Lolita. Girish is a London-based businessman who compared to the impulsive and erratic Shekhar is a self-assured man of pragmatism and calm composure.

Girish puts a spanner in Navin Rai’s plans and the latter feels stung and check-mated at his own game.

Meanwhile the closeness between Girish and Lolita and her family makes Shekhar very jealous and insecure. That’s the point when he also realizes how madly in love he is with Lolita. Fueled by Navin Rai’s web of lies, greed and deception a maze of confusion, exploding tempers and mistrust comes to fore. Shekhar, convinced Lolita has sold herself to Girish, agrees to marry his father’s business partner’s daughter. But after a rough patch between the two things are sorted out.

Debutant director Pradeep Sarkar has shown tremendous caliber to perform and deliver as a film director in his very first movie. He is to watch out for. But despite the songs, the Austin cars and the Rekha nightclub cameo, you do not get a sense of the place. The seemingly perfect recipe has gone soar at some place.

The flashback is too bookish, Pradeep Sarkar and his team should have worked harder to gel it with the story. Tough Pradeep Sarkar has managed to create an ambience of the early sixties, he loses co-relation with the present. Sanjay Leela Bhansali was sharp on this front and that is why he sent Devdas to study in London and not to Calcutta as was in the original novel. Some slight changes in the screenplay would have earned more patronage for the film. The dialogues of the movie are run of the mill stuff. They are completely un-impressive and not a single one stands out.

Parineeta would not have been the same without Lolita, Vidya Balan. Though it would be unfair to compare her with Meena Kumari the gorgeous debutante has a remarkable range of facial expressions and there is not a single scene in the movie when you can catch her acting. She is natural (No doubt Vidhu Vinod Chopra is repeating her in his forthcoming ‘Munnabhai-2′ and ‘Yagna’). Sanjay Dutt looks tired but manages to give an impressive performance.

It’s Saif who gets the tone of his character right. Expressing the rancor, petulance, arrogance and insensitivity of a spoilt rich heir, he lets the bile and tears flow unabashedly.

Rekha in her one act dance number sizzles like a smoldering piece of coal in red. Her item number is to watch out for. Dia Mirza is un-impressive.

Pradeep Sarkar’s ‘Parineeta’ is a well made movie but not a piece of art. It relies too much on technology and lesser of emotional undercurrents. It is the stark copy of Michael Angelo’s, ‘Mona Lisa’ and not the original masterpiece.

Bottom Line:
Parineeta-2005 is all technology and no art! But it is worth watching. Time to grab the popcorns and relax.

Credit: This review was submitted by Ankit Jain of Footprints.in. They run their own movie Blog at DCECinemas. To submit your own review for posting on radiosargam.com please email.

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