(GIMDS for short. i would try for a more attractive short form, an acronym, even, but this is the best way to put it.)
warning: contains spoilers. do not read this post if you want to watch the movie it's about.
anurag basu's
life in a... metro (which btw should win an award for the most poorly-named film of the year) is another indian director's attempt at a
love actually-esque ensemble romance. this time, though, it's set in bombay rather than london or new york, and is supposed to be dark rather than k-jo-variety-cheesy. (oooh.)
ok, so you have to give the man credit for the requisite couple of genius moments -- the phone chain that erupts from rahul's trying to organize evenings at his (literally) pimpin' pad, the overhead of neha's slow but clearly disgusted retraction of her foot while ranjit is on the phone with his wife getting out of attending his own anniversary party, monty telling shruti ("shoottee") to let it all out on the roof, then her realization that she should "take the car out of the garage"...
most of the rest was, well, shallow and/or unreal. traffic jams galore i can understand. but not so much the obvious
brokeback mountain reference to hidden homosexuality. a high-speed horse-taxi-auto chase ("rahooooooooooooooooooool!"). a large number of songs featuring middle-aged rockers standing on street corners/at elevations with guitars as pedestrians pass by, un-curious. tearful
mulakaats at crowded train stations. motorbike rides around powai (that's not the real city, kthxbye.) dharmendra coyly biting his lip. cheesy dialogue about "pyaar ki khushboo" and glass-elevation-aided "mere baap ne yeh ghar banane ka sapna dekha tha lekin uska dum ghut gaya". slutbag red lights at some guy niruddh's house.
and why is everyone so close-knit? the sister-in-law lives with phenyl-glugging girlfriend who's having the affair with the dude who's married to the sister. dude who's in love with girlfriend who's having an affair with other dude happens to work for said other dude, and as a drum-it-in consequence misplaced cell phones cannot possibly be returned discreetly. uhhm, yeah, bombay is a village, but these were pretty blatantly elaborately-arranged coincidences.
what i
really couldn't stand, though (and here we get to the point of this post, parenthetical basu-bashing done) was the feeble state of post-millennial women's lib. when flowy-skirt-wearing shikha brandishes the emasculatory facts at her husband in no uncertain terms -- that she gave up her career for her marriage, and that if she were to start working again, she would make more money than he currently did, and that he dare not ever talk to her like that again -- i thought: "yowzah. go, you." when she starts seeing this aakash guy, i raised an eyebrow at her waffling and hesitation. after all, as he says, she is a person -- and a person with an exquisite dress sense and perfectly-coiffed hair, plus no pit stains despite frequent train travel (also, no apparent childcare duties) plus a cheating, lying husband, to boot! she deserves happiness, too! of course she should... but no, there's the whole bharatiya nari guilt-trip "i have a family, main unke naam ka sindoor pehenti hoon" complex to deal with, so rather than collect her purse on her way out, she jumps out the window and hops in a cab to versova, skimpy sari blouse and all, never to see him again.
then comes the beyond-tragic climax: ranjit's paranoia about being tattled on by shruti (and a well-timed whine about "mummy kabse ro rahi hai" from their apparently-entirely-dispensable child) leads him to confess to shikha that he has been having an affair with neha for the last two years. he says it was a mistake, that it's in the past. he asks her if she will forgive him. she walks to the kitchen, her back to him. no response. then she tells him that shruti hadn't said anything. (i almost expected the asshole to say, "well, in that case, i was kidding! i didn't
really have an affair with a girl with a lopsided smile and a giant pock mark on her face! hahahaha!" but that would have been too fantastic, even for a far-fetched hindi movie.)
then she confesses, for her part, in tears already, that she wasn't at the movies with shruti the other day. that she has been seeing this guy for 4-5 weeks now. that nothing happened. she collapses into his arms.
he says, "it's ok."
(i was surprised.)
and then, a 180: "tum uske saath soyi ho?"
"did he use my bedroom?"
"bacchi to meri hai?"
dishes are smashed to the floor. (ahh, there's the asshole that we knew lay underneath this calm front!)
more tears. guess which of the two is supposed to feel guilty for having committed adultery.
(she did, after all, say that she feels like a slut...)
[is this art imitating life, or life imitating art?]
next thing we know, ranjit has moved out and is ready to take up with neha. shikha keeps the apartment and the child. aakash writes to her to tell her that he is leaving the country and wants her to go with him (he therefore wants her to meet him at their usual spot at the railway station). shikha tells her ever-obedient daughter to do her homework, and is just headed out the door, purse in hand (ostensibly to make a happier life for herself, offspring be damned, the catholic maid's there, na?), when... there stands ranjit, who has been ditched at the last minute by his young assistant/nymphet, and has decided to crawl back home injured and pathetic.
too-young-to-get-that-her-father-is-pond-scum daughter shrieks, "papa!" or "day-deee!" or some such.
at that moment, it was game over. i already knew the contents of shikha's tearful "farewell forever, i have a dead marriage to continue" speech to aakash.
be it known to all the men in my future love life: i may be from bombay, but if you cheat on me, i am not so going to do a shilpa shetty.
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