Umrao Ja...argh
Saw Umrao Jaan last night and met the lovely smartylibrarian who expressed interest in going to Bolly movies again sometime despite my repeated attempts to get us hopelessly lost both on the way there and back.
Oh my God, what a DREADFUL movie. A total waste of $10 and 3+ hours. Ugh. Next time, I'd rather watch paint dry. It will be just as dull but quieter.
Not even worth a long review, but here is my rather short, non-spoilery write-up:
This is a disaster of a movie that moves at a glacial pace but worse, is a boring movie about boring people. Except for being pretty, Umrao has NO interesting qualities, good or bad, but is deadly dull, and the same goes for her lover, Nawab Sultan. I never thought there'd be a day when I think Abhishek was wasting celluloid, but that day is here. If Abhishek was not playing a 19th century Pathan, I think he would have made a perfect redneck spouse: all he needed was a wifebeater and a beer. Talk about a non-Prince Charming. Ugh. I don't even care if he is nasty (loved Lallan in Yuva) but could he please be less yawn-worthy? The thing that annoyed me is the movie tried to protray Umrao and Nawab as amazing true love and cool characters but it just did not work at all and the assumption that they indeed were like that failed miserably.
I know some people on Bollywhat liked Ash in the movie and I am glad for them, but I thought except for her dancing (which was excellent), she was abysmal: a whiny blank of a person, with no inner life that I could see portrayed. About half an hour in I just wanted to tell her to shut up (yeah, not the best life ever but not the worse either. Boo-hoo) and drop off my screen (and I like Ash well enough in general) and the movie still had three hours to go. Yes, the character was not well written (she just went whichever way the wind blew. I would have felt more sympathy for her if she had some character, some volition, something to make her a living, breathing human being as opposed to an overly poseable doll), and JP Dutta is no Mani Ratnam direction-wise, so Ash was laboring under a handicap, but some fault for the utter deadly dullness of Umrao, the character, must lie with Ash.
How can you possibly make a movie with courtesans, rebellion, bandits and doomed love boring? JP Dutta has a special special gift. Should have remembered this was the man who made LOC and stayed away. I literally felt like cheering when it was over. At one point I began to count beads on Ash's embroidery. Sad to say, that was about the most fun I had in that movie.
Oh my God, what a DREADFUL movie. A total waste of $10 and 3+ hours. Ugh. Next time, I'd rather watch paint dry. It will be just as dull but quieter.
Not even worth a long review, but here is my rather short, non-spoilery write-up:
This is a disaster of a movie that moves at a glacial pace but worse, is a boring movie about boring people. Except for being pretty, Umrao has NO interesting qualities, good or bad, but is deadly dull, and the same goes for her lover, Nawab Sultan. I never thought there'd be a day when I think Abhishek was wasting celluloid, but that day is here. If Abhishek was not playing a 19th century Pathan, I think he would have made a perfect redneck spouse: all he needed was a wifebeater and a beer. Talk about a non-Prince Charming. Ugh. I don't even care if he is nasty (loved Lallan in Yuva) but could he please be less yawn-worthy? The thing that annoyed me is the movie tried to protray Umrao and Nawab as amazing true love and cool characters but it just did not work at all and the assumption that they indeed were like that failed miserably.
I know some people on Bollywhat liked Ash in the movie and I am glad for them, but I thought except for her dancing (which was excellent), she was abysmal: a whiny blank of a person, with no inner life that I could see portrayed. About half an hour in I just wanted to tell her to shut up (yeah, not the best life ever but not the worse either. Boo-hoo) and drop off my screen (and I like Ash well enough in general) and the movie still had three hours to go. Yes, the character was not well written (she just went whichever way the wind blew. I would have felt more sympathy for her if she had some character, some volition, something to make her a living, breathing human being as opposed to an overly poseable doll), and JP Dutta is no Mani Ratnam direction-wise, so Ash was laboring under a handicap, but some fault for the utter deadly dullness of Umrao, the character, must lie with Ash.
How can you possibly make a movie with courtesans, rebellion, bandits and doomed love boring? JP Dutta has a special special gift. Should have remembered this was the man who made LOC and stayed away. I literally felt like cheering when it was over. At one point I began to count beads on Ash's embroidery. Sad to say, that was about the most fun I had in that movie.