100 Days of Love

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Has Dulquer Salmaan ever made a bad film? Judging by what I’ve seen so far it seems not! I’ve been steadily working my way through his back catalogue and I’ve yet to find one of his movies that I haven’t enjoyed. Jenuse Mohamed’s 2015 release 100 Days of Love is another to add to the list. Although the film does have a few flaws, the trio of Dulquer Salmaan, Sekhar Menon and Nithya Menen add plenty of charisma and appealing characterisations to an otherwise rather routine romance.  There is also a dash of mystery in the first half and a generous helping of comedy to ensure that 100 Days of Love is more interesting than it first appears and definitely worth a watch.

Dulquer is Balan K. Nair, an aspiring journalist and cartoonist who lives in Bangalore with his best friend Ummer (Sekhar Menon). On possibly the worst day of his life, Balan drunkenly posts a message on his ex-girlfriend’s Facebook page which results in a barrage of abuse and the loss of many of his friends. At the same time he loses his newspaper job to his nemesis Romanch Ramakrishnan (Aju Varghese) and to top it all off there is a torrential downpour just as he is on his way home from clearing out his desk. But this is where fate takes a hand. Just when Balan is at his lowest point, he meets Sheela (Nithya Menen) when the two try to hail the same taxi. While Balan lets Sheela take the taxi, she leaves behind a camera which starts Balan on his mission to find the girl with the beautiful smile.

Balan’s best friend Ummer stands by him, although this could simply be because Ummer is a classic computer nerd who doesn’t get out much. He runs a computer game store of sorts, and his life revolves around playing computer games, talking about computer games and dreaming about developing computer games. Jenuse Mohamed uses this obsession as an ongoing theme while Balan and Ummer try to track down the mystery girl from the cab. All they have to solve the puzzle are a few photographs they were able to develop from the camera and an incomprehensible game plan Ummer draws up on their wall.

Surprisingly they do manage to find the locations of the photographs and even track down the guy in one of the photos, although none of these successes bring Balan any closer to finding Sheela. Rather the opposite since Rahul (Rahul Madhav), the guy they identify, turns out to be Sheela’s fiancé who dramatically warns Balan away from any further contact. Naturally this has no noticeable effect on Balan other than his declaration that he will become Balan K Nair in truth and be the ‘villain’ of the story.

Where the film starts to falter is in the second half, when the focus moves away from Balan and Ummer to the love story between Balan and Sheela. Oddly for a film all about love, there is a distinct lack of passion in their developing relationship and despite a good rapport between Nithya and Dulquer  the romance never feels completely genuine. Although Balan is the very soul of romance, singing along to classic songs and quoting from films such as Casablanca, he takes a restrained approach to his courtship of Sheela. Further subduing any possible seduction is Sheela’s prosaic approach to life and her stated preference for the right credentials in any future life partner. Love to Sheela means arguments and misunderstandings, while for stability and contentment she wants the ideal husband. She defines her perfect match as someone from a good family, rich, has a good job and is handsome too. This is despite the example of her parents who had a romantic love match and whose story she relates to Balan without seeing any of the irony of her own stance. The suggestion is that this is ‘modern thinking’ cemented by the ubiquitousness of Facebook and social media throughout the film, but it doesn’t seem to fit the rest of Sheela’s characterisation or her general approach to life.

Adding to the mixed messages of the second half, Jenuse Mohamed introduces a second Dulquer as his own irritating elder brother and adds in some family problems with his parents. Rocky is as sexist and repulsively cocky as his name suggests and the inclusion of Balan’s family issues adds absolutely nothing to the story. Thankfully though Rocky’s appearances are brief and both Balan and Ummer have enough screen time to keep the story moving along.

Balan’s character is the redeeming feature throughout the second half and  Dulquer is effortlessly charming as he tries to win over Sheela. Balan has all the romance that is lacking elsewhere in the film and this song perfectly illustrates both his love for classic romance and his sentimental character.

Sekhar Menon makes a great sidekick and the partnership between him and Dulquer is easily the best part of the film. I don’t remember seeing him before in any Malayalam films, but I’ll definitely look out for him in future as he does such  good job with his characterisation here.  Nithya Menen on the other hand doesn’t sparkle as much here as I’ve seen her do in other films, but she does have a great smile and has plenty of opportunity to use it. Her character often seems emotionally immature, mainly due to the dialogue rather than her body language, but Nithya has good chemistry with both Dulquer and Sekhar making Sheela more personable than her role would suggest. The support cast are all good in their roles, although for the most part their appearances are brief. Rahul Madhav has little to do other than appear arrogant, and he does that well, but for me this was a missed opportunity to make the ‘other guy’ something other than a complete jerk.

Jennies Mohamed has tried to add in a few different ideas to rejuvenate a standard storyline but not all of them work. The search for Sheela is good and the inclusion of Balan’s day to day life helps make his character more appealing, but the rest of the characters don’t have the same attention to detail and as a result are less successful. There is still plenty to enjoy though. 100 Days of Love isn’t a perfect film, but the good first half and excellent performances from the cast make it well worth a watch. 3 stars

Inji Iddupazhagi

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Ever since she was a little girl Sweety has been collecting fortune cards from a machine, all of them telling her that happy is beautiful, and goodness and a genuine smile will win the day.

Grown up Sweety (Anushka Shetty) still collects these fortunes, and believes that her value is more than the size of her thighs. Her mother Rajeshwari (Urvashi) wants to see her married off, and blames Sweety’s size for her single status. While Sweety remains resilient under family pressure, and rejects many an unwanted match, she does tire of all the BS. Sweety meets fitness freak Abhi (Arya) and while the pair turn down the proposed match, a friendship develops. Sweety realises she actually has feelings for him, but clueless Abhi chooses skinny model looking do-gooder Simran (Sonal Chauhan) as his girlfriend. Sweety knows she missed her chance, and starts to believe that if she slims down, cute boys will like her. When her friend Jyothi (Pavani Gangireddy) becomes seriously ill from treatment at the dodgy Size Zero clinic, Sweety takes on Satyanand (Prakash Raj), the clinic owner and nominal villain.

Sweety is a fantastic character and I am so happy Anushka took the risk and did this film. I also love that she didn’t go the fat suit route, and probably had to eat like a non-celebrity for months and months to get Sweety’s physique.

All too often the fat chick in films is socially inept, asexual, and a charity case – but Sweety is sexy, funny and confident.  She isn’t desperate to get married and will not pretend to be someone she isn’t just to please some bloke and his mother. She has some good friends, enjoys her work, loves food, and has an eye for a hot guy. She also has a rich fantasy life, a temper, she makes mistakes, and makes amends. I loved that family pressure all about looking better for boys did little to budge Sweety, but when she found her own motivation she was sensible and healthy in the changes in her lifestyle. And she never became a stick insect. I also love that this is a South Indian film that revolves around a woman and there is no revenge or rapeyness in the plot. It’s a really simple, engaging, character driven story and Prakash Kovelamudi and Kanika Dhillon give their great cast the material to bring it to life.

Arya is a bit of a weak link. He is very personable and looks good but I never got any emotional development from Abhi, and Anushka’s more nuanced performance overshadowed him. And also – Abhi is a bit of an idiot. Sonal Chauhan is a good pair for him as she is also adequate without being interesting as Simran.

Abhi did engineer the right of reply for Sweety to give her version of a foxy item, the direct retort to Size Zero Clinic’s skanky advertisement. I wish Anushka was a better dancer, but again I am so happy they just went for it. It isn’t all that long ago that Jayamalini and Jyothilaxmi were shaking it for all it was worth, but the trend towards downsizing female bodies makes Sweety’s sassy dance seem quite startling.

Prakash Raj is more of a sleazy used car salesman than true villain. He makes the most of his big speeches and I did like his dedication to himself as the brand and the brand as himself. Adivi Sesh is suitably puppy-eyed as smitten Shekhar, the nice rich man who falls for Sweety as she is. There are comedy uncles, but they actually more or less serve a purpose. And Master Bharath plays a decidedly not size zero young lad. Rao Ramesh makes a short appearance as Sweety’s dad who died while she was still a child. Impish Mouli Thatha (Gollapudi Maruti Rao) loves his granddaughter and is more likely to feed her a jalebi than make her run a lap of the park. Urvashi is note perfect as Sweety’s grumpy but loving and ultimately supportive mother. You can really see where Sweety gets her backbone from, and understand why they clash.

The film is quite fanciful but stays within my tolerance for whimsy – more like Chungking Express (which gets a name check) than Amelie levels of whimsy. It’s beautifully filmed and has a fairytale air in some scenes. The camera freezes some moments, and then explores the scene layer by layer. There’s a device of cheesy but sincere fortune cookie messages that Sweety writes, a nice extension of her fondness for the positive messages she collected for herself. And there was a nice pay it forward demonstrated with said fortune cookie. If I am being picky I have an issue with the choice of wafer as a stand-in for the fortune cookies as they are what one friend calls “povo wafers” – the cheap ones you get in rubbishy gift hampers. I am not as strongly opposed to the cylindrical wafer as she is, while I agree they’re a bit sad. But I digress.

In lieu of any of the traditional action elements, the film loads up on star cameos and a massive spin class with special effects. The film community gets their lycra on to support Sweety’s campaign against Size Zero. Rana is hilariously Hulk like, flexing as as his avatar goes all Bhallaladeva on his animated foes. Tamannah has her game face on and looks like she is set for days. Other familiar faces included Jiiva, Nagarjuna, Revathy and Kajal Aggarwal. All of this is juxtaposed with dodgy animation and effects and some excellent Prakash Raj scenery chewing. So that replaced the usual car explosions and dismemberings quite nicely.

I missed out on seeing Size Zero on its two (yes two!) shows in Melbourne, but luckily the Tamil version, Inji Iddupazhagi, is easily available online and with English subs. (Thanks SakhiSpeaks for the HeroTalkies tip! And you can read her review here.) I love this movie and hope it reaches a wide and appreciative audience. 4 1/2  stars!

Mr Natwarlal (1979)

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I love Mr Natwarlal. It has so much masala goodness, it always puts a smile on my face. We are given Amitabh as a hero with some unheroic ideas, Rekha as a gorgeous and quick witted village belle, Amjad Khan as a typical Amjad Khan villain, more familiar faces than you can poke a stick at, a catchy Rajesh Roshan soundtrack and writer/director Rakesh Kumar continues working out his tiger wrestling fetish. The only major negative is that some of the horse stunts have a look of careless finality for the horses that always makes me queasy.

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The film is framed with Amitabh narrating the story of a child that turns out to be himself, telling the story of his past to his own child. I only mention that so I have an excuse to post this picture of an awesome playground complete with lion statue. I suspected immediately that despite the plethora of cute kid actors I was going to love this.

Natwarlal (Amitabh Bachchan) is a smooth talking fast thinking criminal with Robin Hood tendencies. This dates back to a traumatic childhood incident when he was played by Master Laddu, and his older brother Ghirdharilal (Ajit) was entrapped by Evil Vikram (Amjad Khan). Natwarlal has been raised by his brother and sister-in-law (Indrani Mukherjee), who treats him as a son. Grown up Nattu is tricked by a heavily scarred man into stealing a diamond necklace and smuggling it out of the country. Scarface is actually Micky (Satyendra Kapoor), Vikram’s old (betrayed) business partner who is pretending to be one of Vikram’s Victims. Vikram likes his V symbolism. Poor Ghirdharilal keeps trying to nab his little brother to set him straight but Natwarlal easily produces alibi after alibi. He is determined to become a big enough crook to go after Vikram and set things to rights. Micky wants to use Natwarlal to take Vikram other out so he can take over the secret diamond mines. Revenge is a long and complex game, especially in masala films.

Natwarlal is an audacious crook and easily carries off the heist, even under the watchful eye of his brother. He heads to Chandanpur as instructed, arriving to find the village under a siege of sorts. Vikram is using a tiger (pleasingly, she is credited as Bharati) as a smokescreen for kidnapping villagers in small batches and forcing them to work in the mines. Now. Since the mining operation seems to take place on the river bank just a stroll or a long and desperate horse ride from the village, I would have thought people might notice their “dead” loved ones wandering about. But thanks to the filmi laws of locality blindness it seems not.

Natwarlal arrives suited and booted, toting a gun, unaware that village leader Baba (Kader Khan) has sent for a hunter to come and deal with their tiger issue. He isn’t interested at first in the village problems, being more focussed on the diamonds, but agrees that he is Avtar Singh, the hunter.  Amitabh makes switching from high drama to slapstick comedy look effortless. He is also nattily dressed for the country and Natwarlal must have been very efficient at packing such an extensive wardrobe into one small valise. And I suspect his boots have bullet evading properties.

That tree covered in people always makes me wonder how they got them up there, how long were they up there, and how they got down safely again. Also, given the speed and agility of those ladies the villagers may have been better advised to let them go battle the tiger while the menfolk stayed safely indoors. Sassy Shanno (Rekha) quickly sets her cap at the tall dance-challenged stranger, so Natwarlal gets a little distracted and seems quite happy to wait around.

Zimbo is despatched to check out the impostor as Vikram is quite certain he slapped the real Avtar Singh with a dead pigeon before having him killed. Poor Zimbo wasn’t mourned for long, if at all, when he disappeared under the quicksand. Ah well. No one is irreplaceable. Vikram is a surprisingly rational villain despite being completely nuts, and Amjad Khan seems to be having some fun with the grandiose threats. Vikram tries not to draw police attention, he acts with moderation to achieve a logical goal. But he can’t help branding everyone and everything he owns with a V and can’t just move on quietly or shoot the hero from a safe distance. Nooooo.

Natwarlal realises Vikram is behind everything and goes in search of trouble. Trouble finds him easily enough. Natwarlal rescues Shanno from Vikram’s not very bright goon squad. She is not good at taking orders not to stay out of harm’s way and actually rescues him back on multiple occasions. And they invent a new couples activity – tiger wrestling!

Rekha and The Big B’s on screen chemistry is always wonderful and while Shanno appears to fall for insta-love, Rekha plays her as funny and direct in their many scenes together so the relationship comes to life. Shanno gets her share of the big scenes too, and Rekha gave her fire and resolve. Amitabh also had good rapport with the tiger so I was vaguely hopeful that Bharati was not too traumatised by her many and varied fight scenes.

A lot of the humour comes from how the dialogues are delivered or those small beats in timing. There are some light Sholay references which made me laugh despite the drama brewing, especially Shanno’s Basanti-esque dance while she was being held captive at the diamond mine. I also enjoyed the irascible Natwarlal’s journey to loving something more than himself.

Will they overcome the dastardly Vikram and his all singing all dancing food juggling henchmen? Will Ghirdharilal and Natwarlal make their peace? Will Shanno get her man and her sheep? Will the starving villagers eat the tiger? (Spoiler – no!) Will Natwarlal ever stop blaspheming? Will Vikram get his comeuppance in a satisfyingly poetic manner? So much plot, so little time!

The locations are gorgeous and so is the cast. If you like masala with a modicum of moderation this is a great film.  4 stars! (Deductions for animal welfare concerns and annoying ghostly subtitles.)