{"id":775,"date":"2006-05-27T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2006-05-27T11:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2006\/05\/review-fanaa-2.html"},"modified":"2023-01-27T15:23:13","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T20:23:13","slug":"review-fanaa-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2006\/05\/review-fanaa-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Review : Fanaa"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"Rating : Slightly above average (3.2\/5)
\nGenre : All-in-one
\nYear : 2006
\nRunning time : About 3.5 hours
\nDirector : Kunal Kohli
\nCast : Aamir Khan, Kajol, Rishi Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Satish Shah, Lillette Dubey, Jaspal Bhatti, Tabu<\/p>\n

Loads of desi junta turned up to watch the first day show of Fanaa. And since as usual we reached right before the film began, the theatre had like one row empty – the one closest to the screen. Sitting that close to the screen is not very pleasant ; you have to turn your neck every time some character walks across the width of the screen, left-to-right, right-to-left and so it goes. I watched \u201cMast\u201d from that vantage point and it left me with a crick in the neck which lasted 2 days. So, in the interests of my spinal health, decided to wait for the next show, an hour later to watch the movie. And while I\u2019m twiddling my thumbs in the theatre lobby for an hour, I\u2019m thinking, Man, this film had better be good ! And was it ? Not exactly.<\/p>\n

Fanaa was what I would call \u201ca strongly anticipated\u201d film. Why ? Because there\u2019s a dearth of films. Really, I mean it. Plus Kajol\u2019s comeback film. Plus Aamir. Plus it being a Yash Raj film and all. The only downer to the story was Kunal Kohi, whom I\u2019m not gaga about, courtesy his earlier directorial ventures – the guy seems to be all froth and no substance – I\u2018m convinced that he might be able to make a good film (if he tries really hard) but never a fantastic one. Still the positive factors weighed down the negative, and I the perennial optimist, head for the theatre.<\/p>\n

OK, the film : Happy-go-lucky, poetry-spouting, tapori tour guide Rehan Qadri (Aamir), meets blind Kashmiri girl Zooni Ali Beg (Kajol), when Zooni comes down to Delhi to give a performance for the Republic Day celebrations. He is floored by her beauty, and unnaturally fresh with her, and she is unnaturally coy – I would think any other girl would have slapped a tour guide silly if he had tried advances of that sort. So then he\u2019s apparently in love with her, and she with him. All\u2019s fine and dandy, yeah ? Uhh, . . ., not really.<\/p>\n

Rehan suddenly gets the I\u2019m-not-good-enough-for-you-just a-guide-blah-blah fever thingy, and avoids Zooni. But our Zooni will have none of it, and moves Rehan so much with her selfless love (and a night of passion) that he is forced to come pluck her from the train which is carrying her home, to his very nice digs (for a poor tour guide, I mean). The couple are deliriously happy, as Zooni obtains her parents (Rishi Kapoor, Kiron Kher) approval for the marriage. But there\u2019s more good news folks – a visit to the eye-doctor reveals that with recent advances in technology, Zooni could actually have her eyesight restored. Oh, yippee !<\/p>\n

So, we have Zooni all ready for the operating theatre anticipating the gift of eyesight, while Rehan is leaving to fetch Zooni\u2019s parent\u2019s from the railway station. Yup, you guessed it – the operation is a success, Zooni opens her eyes to find her Ammi and Abbu right before her eyes, but no Rehan . Where is Rehan ? Is all actually as it seems ? Is that the end of the Zooni-Rehan saga ? Yes ? This is a hindi film folks, think again. Or, watch Fanaa.<\/p>\n

Now the story which I\u2018d heard of before watching the movie, struck me as a little . . .err, odd : a blind girl and a tour guide with a mysterious background – there\u2019s gotta be problems, you know real-life problems. The director apparently didn\u2019t see those problems , being content to focus on some very contrived ones instead. To put it baldly, the script turns into a piece of crap, after the interval. Add to that piece of crap jaded cliches, ridiculous coincidences, and a heroine who seems to remember all her parents advice, except the \u201cdon\u2019t jump into bed with the local tour guide\u201d part, and you have Fanaa. You can stretch reality, yeah, only you won\u2019t have a very good film after that. The film changes tracks mid-way to morph from an easy-going romantic yarn (and I\u2019m thinking Wow, there\u2019s hope) into a really cockamamie tale of anti-nationalists, love, betrayal etc. Imagination is good, true, but let\u2019s not get carried away here.<\/p>\n

The characters depicted in the film were OK – I just didn\u2019t find them believable enough. One would think that even liberatarian, shairi-loving mothers would have qualms about blind daughters deciding to marry the local, penurious, apparently uneducated tour guide. And what is with the knitting – why is Zooni knitting like there\u2019s no tomorrow ? Kajol\u2019s character goes from innocent and coy, misled by the first tour guide she meets, to a resilient, strong woman, bringing up her kid as a single parent, and deciding what\u2019s good for the country. Some resume, huh ? She sounds like Superwoman in salwar-kameez. Practical matters are like fluff – easily blown away. No grief, no apparent hardship, no unwed mother stigma, please – I\u2019m just another Bhartiya nari with super-powers. Plus from which angle does Kajol look even remotely Kashmiri ? Also, am curious, do all remotely located cottages in Kashmir come equipped with modern bathroom equipment like bathtubs, and hand-held shower systems ? Resident Kashmiris, please advise. Lot\u2019s of problems with Rehan\u2019s characterization too, but I\u2019d be giving away the movie if I went into those details.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the acting is pretty good. Aamir outdoes himself especially in the emotive scenes – I really felt bad for the guy inspite of the negative overtones of his character. I\u2019ve got to say though that good as the guy is at acting, in that guide get-up he really showed his age, with those crinkly-wrinkly eyes, and the crow\u2019s feet. Kajol is good, but still not in Aamir\u2019s category. Physically she looks good, she\u2019s taken off all the pregnancy fat, and she wasn\u2019t one of those skinny heroines to begin with, so I\u2019d say she\u2019s back to pre-pregnancy fat levels (I don\u2019t mean to be catty, it just sounds that way). Fat levels aside, kudos to her for making a comeback in films after mother-hood, there\u2019s a dearth of working moms with very young children in the industry. Rishi Kapoor as the doting father and Kher as the romantic-philosophy spouting mother, encouraging her daughter to find \u201cher prince\u201d are OK. Jaspal Bhatti as the security guard is annoying. Lara Dutta, flits by in a guest appearance. And Shiney Ahuja<\/a>, appears for a few seconds in a two-bit role – utterly wasted (what was he thinking ?). Tabu acts as a RAW officer, and does a decent job. The child artiste is OK, although he\u2019s sassy, has the desi version of ESP<\/a> (don’t they all ?), and seems to smart-talk a lot.<\/p>\n

Music : some songs are good, especially the \u201cChand Sifarish\u201d , \u201cMere haath mein\u201d numbers. The film was about 3.5 hours long, or maybe it just seemed that way – where\u2019s an editor when you need one ? Me thinks it could easily have been shortened by 50%. And I, unlike Sayesha<\/a>, didn\u2019t have an aloo-paratha to see me through. No siree, they had no samosas, or pakoras at the theater; I had to make do with popcorn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : Slightly above average (3.2\/5) Genre : All-in-one Year : 2006 Running time : About 3.5 hours Director : Kunal Kohli Cast : Aamir Khan, Kajol, Rishi Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Satish Shah, Lillette Dubey, Jaspal Bhatti, Tabu Loads of … 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":[43,76,14,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-43","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-watchable"],"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":11,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : Slightly above average (3.2\/5) Genre : All-in-one Year : 2006 Running time : About 3.5 hours Director : Kunal Kohli Cast : Aamir Khan, Kajol, Rishi Kapoor, Kirron Kher, Satish Shah, Lillette Dubey, Jaspal Bhatti, Tabu Loads of … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-cv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","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=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10433,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions\/10433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}