Out of the three books written by Chetan Bhagat, One night @ the call center was the first one read by me. I found it quite a good book for any one who is not fond of reading heavy english literature. The story was pretty good, it had a good pace and above all the language used in the book was for a common man. It was so simple and lucid that you can read almost half of the book in a single sitting without stressing your mind even a bit. In that sense also it was a good book. And then there was lot of masala to keep you gripped to the story. Overall it was a good book and I recommended everyone who asked for a review of the book to give it a try atleast once.
It was some two years back. Almost two years after the book hit the markets and became quite popular among the readers, this friday came the movie’Hello’ based on the novel. As I had liked the book, I thought of giving the movie a try. I was mainly curious to see how does one feel watching a movie when you know the story beforehand. In fact I had gone with lots of expectations. Though my tempo was definitely a bit down by the low ratings given to the movie by almost all the critics. But as I don’t believe much on the words of those so called movie critics, I went with an open mind and quite a good amount of expectations.
As the movie was an adaptation of the same novel, no part of the story threw any surprises to me as far as the story was concerned. There were a couple of funny parts in the movie which I found were new in the movie and might have been added by the director. Rest was the same as present in the book. At the end, I felt that the movie was a sincere effort by the director Atul Agnihotry. The novel mainly deals with the turbulent life of its characters. Though the director has tried to show the turbulence in the lives of the characters to some extent, he is not able to depict it as deftly as is there in the book. But I believe the turbulence in the lives of so many characters cannot be made into a movie better than this. I also felt that some of the actors could have acted better to put in some more peppiness and vigor into their characters. Sharman Joshi was especially good. Overall I would rate this movie 3 out of 5.
And my passing comment would be that a novel of this type cannot and should not be made into a movie, as movies are made to show as much dramatics as possible and are enjoyable only when they are quick and fast. On the contrary, novels are good only when they are slow and as much detailed as possible. These two mutually opposite characteristics of movies and novels do not make them a good adaptation of each other.