Cast: Katrina Kaif, Tabu and Aditya Roy Kapur
There’s a poignant scene in Fitoor, in which the alluring Firdaus(Katrina Kaif) is running towards a wooden bridge. She’s a vision in white, but all I could admire was the stark, cold beauty of Kashmir and how beautiful the snowfall looked. Fitoor, which means obsession, made a great case of presenting Kashmir, which is often labelled as India’s ‘paradise on earth’, in the most heavenly manner. It looked dazzling with its saffron-red chinar leaves and its stunning valleys, but it made you wonder whether our emotions and awe shouldn’t have been reserved for the troubled couple — Noor(Aditya Roy Kapur) and Firdaus.
It’s like watching the doomed romance Titanic and being distracted by the ship’s decor as its lead pair — Jack and Rose — spread their arms wide and enjoy an intimate, romantic moment. It’s almost blasphemous, because you realise that Fitoor is director Kapoor’s labour of love. The fine detailing that has gone into this film is worth celebrating, but shouldn’t it be the lovers with all their complexities that make your heart skip a beat?
Fitoor is his interpretation of Charles Dickens’ classic, Great Expectations, a novel that showcased forbidden love, betrayal and class struggles.
While Kapur and Kaif do a fair job in playing Noor(the struggling, but talented orphan) and Firdaus(the haughty, remote beauty who’s emotionally controlled by her mother), you may find it difficult to be invested in them in as a couple. You feel their yearnings individually, but you are not feeling their ache. These two lovers never become one unit.
The abrupt chopping of their intimate scene in the UAE version, which I imagine was the scene in which they surrendered to each other physically, didn’t help either. While Kaif played the ruinously provocative woman effortlessly, it was Kapur who came across as the more earnest performer. His self-destructive obsession with Firdaus is cute at first, but an hour into the movie you may find yourself questioning his thickheadedness. Why would anybody — in this day and age of instant gratification — be willing to be treated so shabbily by a woman — even if she’s as beguiling as Kaif?
Tabu, known as something of a scene-stealer(remember Haider?), takes on the role of the eccentric man-hater Miss Havisham from the original. Here she’s Begum Hazrat. Her dark circles and opaque gaze give us an indication of how emotionally shrivelled she has become since getting jilted by her first love in her twenties. It’s engaging to watch her perform — especially the scene in which she asks her emotionally distraught daughter, Firdaus, whether she wanted to end up like her by falling in love with a man beneath her station.
There are moments in Fitoor which are brilliant, but they are few and far between. But what elevates the film greatly is music composer Amit Trivedi’s haunting score. His potent music makes the young lovers’ yearning real and legitimate. Watch this if you want to see a visually stunning piece of filmmaking, but if you are looking for an intense love story, you are barking up the wrong chinar tree.