Don’t Wake out ...Ok its not that bad !
Lets first applaud the pairing of the decade. Ayan Mukherjee obviously with Karan shepherding him bravely moves on to change the equations of lead pairing in Hindi cinema by moving away from the barely can act Barbie dolls to an evolving ‘ Shabana Azmi’ of the 2000, Konkana Sen. Undoubtedly this must be a great break for Konkana and cheers to emerging big time chocolate hero Ranbir for experimenting again after his debut film.
But that’s how far you want to stand up and applaud for ‘Wake up Sid’ not because it’s a bad film but it could have been a good one. The intentions are all there but you keep looking over your shoulder to see if they are project ‘ Jaane tu jaane na’ or Dil Chahta hain’ instead.
The backslapping , hi fiving ‘, beer guzzling, bright T shirted giggling lad and gals act is tiring now. Yes we are lucky we don’t get to watch 40 year olds pretending to be college goers and have genuine stars who can be called youth but the repetition fatigue is setting in.
This script suffers from not being fresh. Boringly predictable from the word go it speaks about a rich brat whose corporate dad wants him to swivel around in the office chairs. But mammas boy wants to do nothing in particular. Papa Kher is annoyed and helps to push the story forward by pushing him out of the house while a cute Supriya Pathak essaying her sis in laws role of ‘Jaane tu …’ looks on.
The boy lands up in a senior girls pad , hes just met. That is the bright spot. No lengthy explanations on the age gap and lack of conventional beauty. The story trudges on weakly and amateurishly to tell us of how the boy matures…or does he…into a professional and realizes where the true love of his life actually resides.
Ranbir is extremely sincere and likeable. Konkana makes the most of the lead role and very confidently. It is obvious that she has added her own touch to the role. Anupam Kher has done this n no of times before. Rahul Khanna is now short of getting stereotyped as the eternal elderly romantic loser..the third angle. It almost feels like he strayed out of the Love Aaj Kal sets on to this one.
Music is average with the title one settling in. For a debut the movie looks bright and fresh and thanks to some real life sets of the middle class buildings and Karans inputs are lightly visible in places.
And can the makeup men go easy on the hero’s lipstick please. Besides cross dressing one starts to think about the cross cosmetic excesses…Come on , Let Ranbir be. The dialogues are clever in places and that is the one of the consolations as you ‘wake’ out disappointed.
Wake up the shows over …. And yes you blink and you miss the references to the controversial B word. And what about the Calcuttans, no one seems too perturbed about not been referred to by the British pronunciation. I guess like the heroine says..tum abhi bachche nahin rahe….