Fashion

Now that's word I love to hate. I'm someone who just swears by one fashion label that goes like Sujathaaaa...(smiles, giggles, whatever!) Vanity is also my middle name apart from being one of the most coveted fashion magazines. I mean, what in the world is this thing called fashion anyway?! But before we go into a debate for which there maybe little or no room in this post right now, let me delve into the movie Fashion, which is the real reason for this post.

Good film. Not a great one, and that is primarily to do with the fact that most filmmakers play to the gallery, instead of playing UP the screenplay. Cliche's come and go in the name of dialogues and scenes. What keeps our chin up is the under your skin performances by Kangana Ranaut and Priyanka Chopra. I am truly amazed at the level of acting standards that Bollywood is seeing, specially with the girls (The Guys can be reserved for another post - maybe a Season2, ahem!).

Gone are the teary eyed good girl lines for our leading ladies...now, we have in flesh and blood, girls with gut and glory. A sample line from Priyanka in the film: Mein sirf model nahin, supermodel banna chahathi hoon.
I shudder to think and somewhere I'm even ashamed to say that none of our south Indian girls could have or will even agree to do what Mr. Bhandarkar has pulled off with these two women! I mean, why is the south Indian heroine always interested in just being an on-screen eye-candy in recent years? Be it a Nayantara (Billa, Sathyam, Aegan) or a Trisha (all her roles till now) or a Shreya (the lesser said the better) - will any of them have the guts to do a film like Fashion in exactly the same way as narrated by the director? A counter arguement could be that such films dont do well at the box office and a stereo typed 'good actress' would only mean playing a village belle. I mean, when are we gonna see a slick, city chick walk away with the acting honors?!! Both our directors and heroines must buck up else, well, we will still be stuck with watching films like Aegan, which does not even merit a review by any standards! Cut to - where we were, on the ramp...

In Fashion, even the not so leading roles have been performed to perfection. A lot of models or Tv actors come out with fresh and realistic performances. That and the fact that this is a well crafted film, add several feathers to the director's hat. Costumes and lighting wonderfully blends in...specially in the fashion show moments (Just watch Kangana down yet another swig of her wine before it gets plucked out of her hand, as her face transforms into the super model she is; she sways onto the ramp like a Goddess, the camera going ahead of her, following her, surrounding her, as she sashays into the flashlights as the Show's Stopper. A true blue fashion moment!)

Yes, the film tends to get preachy and so many of Meghna Mathur's (Priyanka Chopra, whose story this is primarily) decisions are all HERs. Circumstance is depicted as a villain, when actually things could have been worse for her. It's her complexes or confidence that gets her to wherever she falls or flies. And behind every success IS a story. Otherwise, we can all very well be rolling out rotis in our daddy's backyards (If, we all hail from Chandigargh, like our heroine, that is!)

That apart, this film is surely the more watchable among the director's trilogy (Corporate, Page3). Watch it more for what happens on the ramp than off it! A special WOW to the fashion designers and models, who do appear here and there in the film, along with thier exotic creations. The clothes, do take your breath away. And that completely contradicts my beginning on this post. I mean, what in the world is this thing called Fashion anyway?! A movie, perhaps!