{"id":640,"date":"2009-10-03T00:44:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-03T04:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2009\/10\/movie-review-wake-up-sid-2.html"},"modified":"2017-10-15T19:14:57","modified_gmt":"2017-10-15T23:14:57","slug":"movie-review-wake-up-sid-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2009\/10\/movie-review-wake-up-sid-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Wake up Sid !"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"
\nRating<\/b> : Above average (3.75\/5)<\/b>
\nGenre<\/b> : Romance\/Drama<\/b>
\nYear<\/b> : <\/b>2009<\/b>
\nRunning time : 2 hours 30 minutes<\/b>
\nDirector<\/b> : Ayan Mukerji<\/b>
\nCast : Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Khanna, Shikha Talsania, Namit Das, Kashmira Shah<\/b>
\nKid rating<\/b><\/a> : PG<\/b>
\n
\n<\/b>
\n
\n<\/b>
\n<\/i><\/b>WAKE-UP SID : DREAMY DEBUT<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Richie-rich Sid, as you know<\/a>, is your perennially lovable loser. Aisha Bannerji is a motivated wanna-be writer who desires her independence, and she tells Sid, when he asks, a MAN not a BOY (such as he) for a soul-mate. So never the twain shall meet, you think ?<\/p>\n

Director Ayan Mukherji\u2019s debut vehicle \u201cWake up Sid\u201d is actually a film about Siddharth waking up, metaphorically that is, to his life, and his place in it. Aisha, the new girl in town, befriended by Sid, is instrumental in making that happen, but her disdain for his childishness \u2013 she calls him a \u201cbachha\u201d, ensures that younger Sid and older Aisha remain \u201cjust friends\u201d. So when slacker Sid fails his graduate (or under-grad for the US) exams, misbehaves with his mother (Supriya Pathak Shah), and is booted out by his father (Anupam Kher) he lands up where else, but at his friend Aisha\u2019s doorstep.<\/p>\n

Aisha is inching along with her own goals in life \u2013 she has a job, but she wants \u201cthe\u201d job \u2013 as a writer. Romance is in the air once we spy the very artsy looking Rahul Khanna as her boss. Sid must learn to live sans his Dad\u2019s wealth and the various associated comforts, but there is hope in terms of possible work and love might be right around the corner once he meets an old (and very pretty) acquaintance. Life happens, but will it, for Sid and Aisha ?<\/p>\n

\u201cWake up Sid\u201d is sensitively crafted, and humorously told. Much of the humor stems from the interaction between Sid and his friends, and his very guileless remarks like the one where he tells Aisha, whom he\u2019s only just met, that she probably is not the college crowd type, since she looks older. The college camaraderie is reminiscent of parts of \u201cDil Chahta Hai\u201d<\/a> which also was a story of very rich kids. And cynically speaking, maybe the atmosphere feels right, and the humor funny, when the vodka is flowing and the wealth inherited ?<\/p>\n

Not to say that Mukherjee doesn\u2019t put his best foot forward \u2013 he does. He takes this basic coming-of-age story and infuses it with humor, charm, and some very moving familial touches. The film\u2019s screenplay which was good on the whole, was at times so graceful that emotions jumped at you from the screen, and at times, fumbled for logical reasons. It\u2019s not that the film portrayed fantasy, but it did portray a very pretty reality \u2013 newbie Aisha not only gets the job, but she obtains a flat in Bombay (which sounds prohibitively expensive on no salary) before she lands the job !<\/p>\n

Konkona Sen Sharma might not be the prettiest actress we have, but she wins hands down when it comes to emoting. Her character Aisha Banerjee, was realistically written and portrayed. Ranbir too gave a pretty good performance as Siddharth, although his acting skills could be honed; the cracks showed in the scene where he goes to talk to his Dad about the cheque. His character, that of clear-hearted, fun-loving, guileless Sid was well sketched. Also very believable and adding to the general merriment were Sid\u2019s loyal friends Laxmi (Shikha Talsania) and Rishi (Namit Das).<\/p>\n

As far as characters go, Supriya Pathak\u2019s was the one fragile spot. An actress of Pathak\u2019s caliber is stuck in a weak, wishy-washy role as Sid\u2019s mother, where she clings on pathetically to her son\u2019s affections via broken English. She seemed more weak-willed than the average mother, and quite unalike mine, who would have soundly told off (and thrashed) a son like Sid. Anupam Kher depicting Sid\u2019s father Ram Mehra, is outstanding, and I didn\u2019t need to say that, did I ?<\/p>\n

Another feather in the cap for the film-makers is the music. The title song, and \u201cKya karoon\u201d are both youthful and energetic. I also like the very melodious \u201cAaj kal zindagi\u201d \u2013 very vintage Shakar-Ehsaan-Loy and reminded me strongly of \u201cKaisi hai yeh rut\u201d from \u201cDil Chahta Hai\u201d. Also very nicely done was the Uday Benegal (remember Indus Creed<\/a>\u00a0 ?) sung number \u201cLife is crazy\u201d. I wasn\u2019t floored by \u201cIktara\u201d but what really drove me nuts was how, whenever a romantic scene came on, the music immediately changed to this English ballad style shit \u2013 what ? Hindi not expressive enough for romance ?<\/p>\n

So now we come to the part where I tell you that this life drama-cum-romance gave me my money\u2019s worth. Well, yeah \u2013 upto a point. I loved the lazy banter, the unselfconscious horsing around, the great leap that Hindi cinema has supposedly taken in actually showing a platonic relationship between a good looking young man and woman, and not having them jump in bed together, even though they sleep only a few feet from each other \u2013 yup, wrap your mind around that one ! Bollywood might actually be coming of age !<\/p>\n

What didn\u2019t work for me was that I just didn\u2019t fancy the way it ended, happily which was good, but not very believably. Chalk and cheese, the two of them, you know ? Therefore no warm-and-mushy feelings mellowed my drive home, and the bells of true romance on-screen didn\u2019t jangle at all (as they did post Love aaj kal<\/a>, or post Cheeni kum<\/a>) \u2013 which is kind of a bummer, because that was the point, wasn\u2019t it ?<\/p>\n

Still, a very worth-it film from Ayan Mukerji, this one is pretty clean and classy, but gets a PG (and not G) rating for some girly, \u201chow\u2019s your sex-life\u201d kind of talk<\/p>\n

Tags : Wake up Sid movie review, Wake up Sid film review, Wake up Sid review<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Above average (3.75\/5) Genre : Romance\/Drama Year : 2009 Running time : 2 hours 30 minutes Director : Ayan Mukerji Cast : Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Khanna, Shikha Talsania, Namit Das, Kashmira … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70,90,76,14,10,179,11,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-70","category-all-netflix","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-family-friendly","category-hindi-movies-on-netflix","category-rating-pg","category-recommended"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":10,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Above average (3.75\/5) Genre : Romance\/Drama Year : 2009 Running time : 2 hours 30 minutes Director : Ayan Mukerji Cast : Anupam Kher, Supriya Pathak, Ranbir Kapoor, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rahul Khanna, Shikha Talsania, Namit Das, Kashmira … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-ak","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7425,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640\/revisions\/7425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}