A)Have you tasted success and liked it a lot so that it became an obsession to you?
b)When you became successful, whether your personality changes to an extent to which you forgot our fundamentals?
c)To what extent you compromise to reach your goals?
d)What you have to do to become a Show Stopper (the lead lady on the ramp who reflect the style of the collection and the perceived style of celebrity)
e)Whether success and arrogance are directly proportional?
Fashion throws all these questions to you!
Madhur Bhandarkar in search of another taboo subject crash landed here in search of other side of glamour world. My expectation out of Madhur is so high and probably that is where I am not able to rate this as his best so far. Yet – it is a cinematically well made movie compared to the other recent movies.
The story of an ambitious small-town girl Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra) who wants to make it big in the fashion industry as a supermodel in the city of dreams (Mumbai) and through her association with model coordinators, portfolio photographers, talent managers, fashion designers, media moguls and business magnates she finally gets to rule the ramp.
Meghna clearly understands than the ramp calls for some attitude but with success her attitude upgrades into arrogance. And this overconfidence gets her tumbling down the slope of success. Back to square one, it’s nearly impossible for Meghna to make her comeback. But with the support of her father who was reluctant to send her to Mumbai, she started her struggle again!
During her journey, the other major characters who touched her life –
Sonali Gujral (To be pronounced as Shonali) – The super model turned to way side beggar, the character played by Kangana Ranaut. Her character resembles real life character of Geetanjali Nagpal (who was deserted on streets of Delhi) and Carol Gracious (famous for wardrobe malfunction in fashion show). Also, she did a fantastic job on the ramp!
Janet – The character played by the seasoned model, Mugdha Godse – who is also a struggler who settle down by marrying her old classmate and famous designer, who is a gay but want to marry a lady due to social compulsions
Abjijit Sareen (Arbaz Khan) – The media giant who creates and destruct models
Anisha Roy (Kitu Gidwani) – Abhijit’s right hand and manages the show for him. Initially mentors Meghna
Other male characters are quite insignificant! Sorry guys!
There is distinctive Bhandarkar-brand of revelations on the glamour world like how wannabe models get pay-packets for being eye-candy at elite events or how eminent designers tag their labels on apparels from Bangkok’s Indira Market to pass-off as their own creations.
The screenplay by Madhur, Anuradha Tiwari and Ajay Monga peeks deep into the reality of the fashion world and touches every single aspect of the industry such as casting couch, gay designers, wild lifestyle of models who can’t handle success, backstage dramas during major fashion shows, manipulative head honchos and attitude problems of successful people. After holding the audience’s attention captive for a major portion, the screenplay tends to drag towards the finale moments. Niranjan Iyengar’s dialogues strike a chord.
Priyanka in the most challenging roles of her career, delivers the goods successfully.
Even though it is her debut film, Mugdha Godse shows extreme confidence. Might be she is the one who is more experienced in the ramp than others.
Kitu Gidwani also did a fantastic job and look like a very seasoned and veteran professional in glamour industry.
Arbaaz Khan, Sameer Soni, Arjan Bajwa did good enough job.
Kangana Ranaut – with due respect to her acting skills – seems to be repetitive. The same screaming, yelling, crying, tantrums ---- which we see from Gangster era onwards -- Director could have done some justice to her role.
Cinematography is worth mentioning - as it captures the stunning moments on the ramp. But alas - the copied version of Paris didnot appeal too much.
All in all - the movie would have been much better with an added tempo plus removing those scenes which mocks the gay issues!
All in all 3 out of 5 fom my side.