When I was in India (more blog posts on that at my other blog), I
was determined to go at least once to the theater. It didn’t happen in Delhi
like I’d hoped for, but it did in a smaller, dirty mall theater in Agra. I was
trying to see Shootout at Wadala
(which I still haven’t seen), but it wasn’t playing at the right time, and I
was forced to settle for Aashiqui 2,
of which the only thing I knew was that it was a romance (kind of a duh once I
figured out what aashiqui means).
I was able to understand
more of the dialogue in Aashiqui than I probably would have understood with a
subtitleless Shootout at Wadala — I was also perfectly able to understand the
teenagers in the line who were making fun of us and our inability to understand
the movie (“subtitle hai?” one laughed with a look in our direction) — but
enjoyment factor? Much lower than hoped for.
Synopsis: Rahul Jaykar (Aditya Roy Kapoor) is a famous singer at perhaps the
height of his fame but attempting to drown it all in alcohol. Drunk driving one
night after a brawl at a concert, he almost runs over Aarohi (Shraddha Kapoor).
Later he follows her to a bar where he discovers that she too is a singer —
“better even than me.” He’s determined to help her break into the music
business, even after a manager that he fires for sabotaging the woman he has
come to love. The only problem: Aarohi rapidly becomes more popular than Rahul,
who can’t handle it and spirals even farther out of control despite maintaining
a live-in relationship with Aarohi.
All told, Aashiqui is a
nice little love story for awhile. Maybe half. Maybe less.
You might be able to call nearly the whole a love story, but it certainly isn’t nice.
Once Rahul turns back to
drinking, it gets ugly. Really ugly. I lost count of the times that Rahul goes
off on Aarohi, and it’s gone past the point at which she should’ve left for
pure self-preservation purposes long before the film ends.
Modern enough for sex, not modern enough for the woman to have a sense of self-preservation. |
And yet Aarohi stays
with Rahul, who by then has gone past being openly hostile to her success —
he’s yelled at her, broken their apartment, stolen money from her, pushed her
down, raised his hand to her. I understand that it’s too much to ask for all
successful Bollywood heroines be as bold as Konkana Sen Sharma’s Sona in Luck By Chance (she breaks up with
Vikram even as he’s apologizing; kya backbone to shoot down a repentant Farhan
Akhtar!) but come on. Aarohi is modern enough to live with Rahul without any
sort of commitment, but she’s not modern enough to look out for herself once he
turns abusive? It’s gone past general self-preservation and into personal
safety in Aashiqui. The ideology is just downright dangerous.
And still Aarohi hangs
on. Another case of the ridiculous helpless woman syndrome.
I can understand loyalty
to a degree, but in this case it’s utterly absurd and even infuriating to make
a character stay past so many points at which she should have left. And maybe
if she had, it would have helped Rahul see his own self-destruction. As it is,
Aarohi keeps picking him up just long enough for him to fall again.
Instead *SPOILER ALERT* we end up with Rahul
saying he’ll get help/rehab (after he’s already been through it, of sorts, once
in a retreat with Aarohi) — and then killing himself.
It would be tragic,
really, if it didn’t come at such a profoundly stupid point in the plot arc.
Yes, Rahul draws on the
Devdas aura with his excessive drinking and has a frustrating ineptitude like
the Bengali alcoholic of old, but this is not the man who realizes his error as
his body fails and dies on Paro’s doorstep. This is a man who in a rollercoaster
of a battle with the bottle hits a high note, waffles a bit and decides what
the hell, let’s just end it all here, effectively shooting all of Aarohi’s
longsuffering support in the face.
Let's get better with sexytimes, fall off the wagon, then give up on it all. Thoroughly eff the heroine, right? |
I did not need another
reason to dislike Aditya Roy Kapoor — every half-assed performance I’ve seen
him give before was enough — but I sure did get it. Does he portray the scumbag
Rahul well? Well, probably better than any other character I’ve seen him
portray, but it’s not exactly a mark in his favor. There are definite moments
when you feel for Rahul, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll end up loathing
him by the end. He’s not just broken; he’s dangerous, harmful and broken.
I have markedly less
hate for Shraddha Kapoor (too many Kapoors!), but neither do I have high
praises. She is beautiful and sweet, yes, and somewhat endearing with her
innocence, but she isn’t anything to marvel at. Another mostly throwaway
heroine. (Honestly, about the same opinion I had of her after Luv Ka The End. It may have improved
slightly with Aashiqui, but I wasn’t bowled over.)
Kind of how I felt about this movie! |
One thing I definitely
didn’t dislike? The music. It was haunting and lovely and moving in all the
right places. Although one would hope for that in a movie focused on two
singers.
Sum total? I was very
displeased with Aashiqui’s arc, but I’m glad that among all the things I didn’t get to do in India, at least I
got to see a film and work out my Hindi comprehension. (Though yeah, I’m still
not happy I had to endure mouthy teenagers to do it. I hate teenagers.) Oh, and
after paying for the Rs. 275 Platinum reclining, comfy seats at the top of the
theater, I now understand why 90 percent of my desi friends like to sit at the
top of the theater (rather than somewhere in the middle like most of my nondesi
friends).
Understanding is fun,
and comfy too.
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