REVIEW : A FILM FOR THOSE WHO CARE
Rajiv Vijayakar
November 07, 2008
Before the NRI territory became big at the box-office, Hindi films were made for a pan-Indian audience. But as the NRI terrain grew and hybridization seeped into the metros, filmmakers began increasingly to cater to them, dishing out a Punjabi-meets-pop potpourri that earned them big revenue from these lucrative areas even if 90% of the homespun audiences thirsted for the wholesome fare they wanted – family values, Indian culture, progressive and elevating stories and melodious music – to watch in our movies. The result was that films were split into artificial genres like NRI, metro-centric, multiplex et al.
Amidst this turbulence, a handful of filmmakers and banners stuck to their convictions and styles, and among them was Rajshri Productions. Ek Vivaah…aisa bhi may not be as progressive as Rajshri’s last enterprise Vivah, but it emerges, in the final analysis, as a heartwarming saga of how human beings can reach subliminal heights of virtue. Based on the same story as their 1976 success Tapasya, EV…ab tweaks this tale of sacrifice for the millennium generation by keeping the story bright and largely cheerful.
Prem (Sonu Sood) hails from a rich family in Bhopal. Disinterested in his family business and completely into music, he falls in love with the music-loving Chandni (Eesha Koppikhar) from a middle-class family when they meet as local winners and aspiring contestants for an all-India music competition. Love blossoms, and Prem’s mother Sulbha (Smita Jaykar) and Chandni’s father Brij Bhushan (Alok Nath) are thrilled with their respective children’s choices.
But tragedy strikes on the eve of the engagement ceremony as Bhushan dies. Chandni realizes that there is no one to look after her orphaned siblings Anuj (later Vishal Malhotra) and Sandhya (Amruta Prakash, ditto), then just kids. She tells Prem that he is free to marry anyone else, but Prem decides to wait, through her determined struggles to run the house, bring up and educate her siblings and see them settled. There has been no commitment, but Prem and Chandni, to all purposes, are like husband and wife in their bonding and commitment to each other.
The film begins with Anuj’s marriage to Natasha (Chhavi Mittal), and after the flashback, fresh trouble brews. The rest of the film shows how true love triumphs in an endearing way.
Conceived by Sooraj R.Barjatya, EV…ab is a courageous step towards making a truly Indian entertainer at a time when Hindi movies barely reflect our culture. A sacrificial saga in the millennium may seem grossly anachronistic, but the film pulls it off with its sincerity and a lot of heart and soul making for an emotionally-elevating trip. Scriptwriters Shashi and Sumeet Mittal make sure that cloying melodrama is avoided (but for a couple of times) and the movie does not downgrade itself into a dreary sob-story. Briskly-paced at all times, EV…ab has old-fashioned melodies to back it, and is lifted further by competent actors and director Kaushik Ghatak’s tight grip on the emotional quotient.
The acting honours go to Sonu Sood, though he could have done with some variation in his sometimes in-your-face virtuous expressions. Eesha Koppikhar reprises the sacrificing heroines of yore in controlled fashion but is a natural in the lighter sequences. Vallabh Vyas is superb as the family friend, and Amruta Prakash, Anang Desai and Smita Jaykar effective. As the couple’s loyal buddies, Kunal Kumar, Ritu Vashistha and Damandeep Singh are excellent. The kids Amey Pandya and Ishita Panchal are delightfully natural. The downside includes Alok Nath (hamming as the goody-goody father), Chhavi Mittal, who seems to have forgotten that a film is not a soap, and a typecast Vishal Malhotra, whose two-and-a-half expressions begin to grate as the film goes on.
There are some other areas too where the film could have been better. The songs are excessive and most of the time the background music too is made up of them. Put together, they become too intrusive instead of being inclusive. Ravindra Jain’s lyrics, in terms of language, are a delight in these days when Hindi and Urdu in our songs has been decimated by junk Punjabi and English, but his music could have been eons better, with Shaan miscast in the songs that craved for a more wholesome voice.
There is also a certain lack of intensity in the Sonu-Eesha chemistry, especially in (admittedly unfair) comparison to the Shahid Kapoor-Amrita Rao sizzle in Vivah. But this shortfall seems to have less to do with the actors than with an unnatural lack of the physical element in their relationship. A couple may stay faithful for 12 years, it may even abstain from physical relationship, but to show that there was no yearning for each other at that level is not just impossible but unbelievable, especially when the hero has written a poem on her beauty at his very first awakening of love!
Finally, a minor point that could have been made for a major highlight in the climax – an innocent sequence has the kid Sandhya asking Prem on their first meeting whether he will take her sister away that very day. He replies, “I will take her away only when you tell me to do so.” That line should have been recalled in some cinematic fashion in the end to enhance the impact.
But in the broader scheme of things, these avoidable aberrations can be forgotten in this nutritious fare, because it comes at a time when we are subjected to an excess of wannabe Yankee pizza garnished with half-cooked sarson ka saag.
RAJSHRI.COM RATING: 
What our stars mean?
: AWESOME, SO DON’T MISS
: PRETTY COOL
: WORTH A DEKKO
: WATCH IT IF YOU MUST
: THROW YOUR TICKET AWAY
