Bollywood wakes up!

Exams kept me from blogging for a while. The first thing I did after the exams is watch Wake up Sid! and this is what I have to share:
At the risk of sounding clichéd, Wake Up Sid! is a whiff of fresh air. Something that your lungs so used to the carbon monoxide of Bollywood will immediately recognize. Not a great film or something, but indeed a refreshingly unconventional one! Which was the last film you remember in which the guy moved into the woman’s flat and the woman propelled him to cook his own food through questions like-‘Tumhe khana banana nahi aata naa? Kuch bhi nahi?’

Wake up Sid! breaks into a few more Bollywood stereotypes. Not that it does complete justice to them yet it’s a commendable start at least. For once, you see an obese girl as a part of the hip college gang of Siddharth( Ranbir Kapoor). Thankfully, she is an important character in her own right and not merely brought in for some cheap humour. Aisha’s ( Konkana Sen) character is fiercely independent and clear in her head about things. When Aisha and Siddharth first meet at a party and she goes for a walk with him; she makes it clear that he shouldn’t think that she wants to sleep with him. Sid snaps back saying that he doesn’t want that either. But he admits that the idea crossed his mind when Aisha questions-‘Ek baar toh socha hoga naa?’

For once, the lead female character refuses to let ‘love’ drive her life. When the twenty year old Sid suggests his twenty-seven year old friend that there could be something more than friendship between them, she rejects the idea outright saying he is too ‘bachcha’ for her. When the inevitable love eventually happens, it is presented in a fresh way. Love is Aisha’s first article in Mumbai Beats about how a friend she met on her first day in Mumbai (read Sid) made her fall in love with the city. Love for Sid is wearing Aisha’s white kurta that he had mistakenly carried with his clothes, and drenching it in rain. And believe me, the characters in the film are so real that you can relate with them in an instant. Also, attempts have been made to make the film as unsentimental as possible. Long sequences like the one where the spoilt brat Sid is asked to leave home by his father after rendering all those emotional dialogues are without any background music or song. Ranbir and Konkana’s acting seems effortless.

On the whole, a great attempt by a young brigade of filmmakers ! Worth a watch or maybe a two. :)