After almost a year I went down to watch a movie in theater. Swades being an Ashutosh Gowarikar film, had the merits of being the first after this long hiatus from movie watching.
While Tania Malhotra gave up persuading me to write reviews (poor soul also gave out some enticing offers of prizes, competition etc etc), I finally decided to put forwards a few words.
Awful lot of people, though, have already put up what they like or dont like about Swades.
Swades is definitely not a Lagan. Well I am sure it never was meant to be one. Swades brings
very nicely the anxieties of expatriate indians, especially the younger/first generation expatriates
and pretty much treads on the ’’think not what your country gave you, but what you can give to your country lines’’.
No doubt the message put forward was good. It was conveyed well too. But the movie drags & is a little too lengthy until by the end you start feeling, is it ever gonna end ? Good part of the movie is that after a long time someone has gathered the courage to portray rural India in its present form, that is when it is no so unexposed, not so innocent anymore.
Also, gladly it is a more real presentation (to the utter dismay of the guy sitting next to me, who had brought 2 gori’s along to watch the movie), leaving out the - females swaying & singing with pots upon their head - scenes. The movie deals with very basic & real problems facing India, which very few people want to see in a movie, when the likes of Mallika sherawat are present to deal with the rather saucy problems of their married lives.
For a change I liked SRK better in this movie, than in any other movie he has ever worked in. His stammer seems to be have taken care of to some extent, though the incessant twitching continued. Anyway’s he managed to be slightly more of Mohan Bhargava & a little less of the ’’Great’’ SRK. Gayatri Joshi was looking cute but thats about it. I really dont think she did any great job, though she wasnt very bad for a debut either. But after a while I got tired of the sweety syruppy smile that she kept plastered on her face all the time & damn well acted pretty plain all the time.
Of the Side cast, Kaveriamma was good, I liked her acting when she meets SRK first.
Postman & Melaram being right at the top.
Yunhi chala & Title song, were both very well done, while all others were pretty bad. especially the
one gayatri sings near the lake, that song was really not required & shud have been edited out.
Overall, a good Movie, but decidedly a flop right at first look. Reasons for downfall : Length, More like a sermon & no romance between lead pair (that kills the movie in small centers) & off course it appeals to a pretty small section of the viewers anyway.