Urban romantic comedies seldom work in Hindi. More often than not, the characters are busy doing limpid literal translations of stock Hollywood romanticisms, thereby rendering the Hindi dialogues utterly emasculated. But here’s a romantic comedy that largely works, even if it doesn’t always work largely. There’s ample room for improvement, especially in the post-intermission half when the narration runs out of scheme. Or do I mean steam? This is a film that doesn’t really follow rules, and yet seems to walk on the right side.
Paravati Balagopalan, who’s done some truly unorthodox stuff on television, keeps the wispy plot afloat, thanks to her sharp comprehension of the basic ground rules of the genre. The central romance between supermodel Vikram (Milind Soman) and the unglamorous fashion photographer Radha (Meera Vasudevan) is steamed up by the director’s unerring sense of timing.
The close encounters of the love kind are mushy and yet strangely freed of mawkishness. Unlike her other urbanized contemporaries who make city-bred films with little or no inner substance, Parvati Balagopalan never uses the frailty of the genre as a pretext to get seriously shallow.
The situations devised in the plot are tried-and-tested but never trite and detested. There’s a fairytale quality to the man-meets-girl romance. The director can look at the love-shove business with a stirring blend of comic detachment and sensitive involvement.
Balagopalan has used mainstream Hindi cinema’s “superhit formulas” to qualify the romance. In fact, one of the film’s primary assets is the way it flicks from mood to mood without skipping a beat. One minute Balagopalan spoofs the mush, the next minute she’s celebrating it.
The device whereby a typical Bollywood producer-director pair narrate a script to supermodel Vikram, while elsewhere his own rather cutely filmy romance blossoms, gives the narrative a healthy appearance of freshly redesigned romantic conventions. The one thing that we can’t miss in this goofy little designer-romance is the scent of a woman.
Also Read: Here Is Why Murugadoss’s Film Madharaasi Must Click For Him To Survive
Paravati Balagopalan’s perceptions are purely feminine, so much so that the male characters seem tenebrous. Tanuja, who plays Radha’s all-knowing grandma, dominates her household to the point where the male of the house appears caricaturally ineffectual. Elsewhere, in vignette form, we meet various characters clasped in evolving relationships. The best among these vibrant vignettes is the gay love story where the protagonist comes out of the closet and drags out his sleeping partner just when he’s being married off by his parents to a nice little girl.
As the gay couple embraces, the bride-to-be walks off in a flurry of giggles.
Our responses are pretty much the same. The film amuses and never abuses our patience. Nor does it pretend to have profound layers under its trendily designed tale of love set in the beau monde.
At times, the dialogues (Ajitabh Menon) move us into a wistful mode. Like the time when grandma Tanuja confronts confused lover-boy Vikram in the park and tactfully explains to him why the loved one is special to the person who falls in love. The editing by Jyotsna Murthy avoids the predictable jump-cuts associated with films on fashion and modelling.
The casting is as impeccable as can get. Tanuja is subtly sagacious and yet wickedly wacky as the heroine’s grandma. In many ways, she holds the key to the film’s yummy yearnings, doling out wisdom without getting patronizing. Some of the supporting cast, such as the actor who plays the homosexual, is first-rate without seeming to be looking for a rating.
As for Milind Soman and newcomer Meera Vasudevan, they seem to come together in a chuckle-and-cheese combo that reminds us of Anil Kapoor and Sridevi in Lamhe. The debutante heroine reminds us of Sridevi when she smiles. She’s spontaneous and quite a refreshing change from the mannequin theory of stardom.
Milind Soman doesn’t try to act. Nor does he try to pass off non-acting as underplaying. Instead, he extends his own personality into his character. We don’t quite ‘know’ who this supermodel is. But we know our girl-next-door adores him since she was 14. And that’s enough.
Rules… isn’t a pathbreaking debut film. But it has flashes of genuine humour and intelligence. It treads the routine romantic road with a flavourful flair for the frills and fangs of an urban lifestyle. It doesn’t get us anywhere. But gosh, just this once, we don’t mind being taken for a ride.
Also Read: Mahesh Bhatt Remembers Kaash: The Scar That Shaped A Storyteller
