Opinions differ …
Note: I am not a critic. I am a writer. I write on stuff that interests me. I write about something I feel strongly about or something that grabs my attention. What I write may not necessarily be right.
Now coming what I wanted to say, it is a human experience that we are sharing while watching a movie. The expression the actor uses need not be technically right, as long as the end result is right. You see all the variety of expressions Jim Carrey uses to convey his frustration in ‘Bruce Almighty’. Can you easily say that he is over acting? It’s a matter of personal opinion.
I am normally one of the few sitting in front of a big screen, watching so called great movie, with utter lack of interest and absolute non-involvement. But not when this guy comes up with these weird set of expressions with lip quivering, stuttering, eyebrow lifting, sobbing, head nodding and what not!, I get involved.
I am an average movie watcher. I need to feel. I need the movie to trigger my own imagination, to enter my inner world and remain there permanently.
So do tearjerkers jerk me? NO. Not the ones wherein the beautiful (with total make up) characters say perfectly touching dialogues, with nice long pauses. It’s too unrealistic. Can anyone about to be over powered by a strong emotion state speak without fumbling to get the right words?
Do the so-called realistic movies with sadistic ends impress me? NO. I accept, reality is too often bitter, yet life always finds a way out on itself. The practical optimism is often missed out by the movies specifically made for getting national awards. There are all doomed. Watching a movie with a sad ending is different from one with a doomed ending.
Does the RGV type of reality impress me? Something like reading a James Hadley Chase book, when you are not sure who the villain is. No. It’s too full of grown up, goonda type, rotten people. Not all people are like that. There is still innocence and love left in the world. I feel no involvement in watching hard core criminal people and the violence in their life in the name of reality.
So, what do I need? I need a nice feel good movie, worthy enough to grab my attention, strong enough to stay in my mind and something that involves the audience’s involvement.
Audience involvement is something that SRK has always managed to get. Right from his Fauji days! (Otherwise MHN would have been a flop). Next time you watch a SRK movie, make sure to turn your head and watch the faces of his audience. I am sure you fill find many smiling faces and at least one with an ‘Thats disgusting’, sort of an expression. Though that is a different matter all together, he has managed to grab attention in either case.
You cannot neglect his presence. This unique ability has been both a gift and curse for SRK. It’s irksome to some people. That’s the reason most of performance gets commented as ‘SRK plays himself rather than the character’. (As though you know the guy very well)
To me it’s not wrong. It’s up to your imagination and how much you feel that differentiates how much you get involved.
Ever heard Julia Roberts say that touchy dialogue, towards the end of ‘My best friends wedding’. Most people get tears in their eyes while watching that scene.
‘I dreamt of this psychopath who wanted this marriage off …’.
Our very own Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa has a scene very similar to that. But xithout dialogues, SRK manages to touch hearts.
He expresses without words, but with some weird expressions! Some call it over acting. But some characters need what he does. It is a matter of choice.
For most, at least in MS, it’s a matter of shame to call SRK their favorite actor. It’s quite fashionable to say ‘I hate SRK’, or ‘I used to like SRK in his early movies’. Not to me.
May be it’s for a similar reason that I like Jim Carrey too. But I do accept that you cannot make Jim Carrey act as Maverick of Top Gun. Not that, he wouldn’t know how to act; but just that it would be a huge waste of Jim Carrey’s talents. Same applies here to.