Saturday, September 20, 2014
Daawat-e-Ishq
Foodie Romance
Habib Faisal whose best work so far is his directorial debut Do
Dooni Char, and the script for Band Baaja Baaraat, comes
up with an almost tasty dish of a movie, with maybe just a crucial ingredient
missing that prevents it from tasting right.
The heroine of his Daawat-e-Ishq is Gulrez, the always feisty Parineeti Chopra, far more
convincing as a middle-class girl with upwardly mobile ambitions than Sonam
Kapoor in this week’s other release, Khoobsurat. She is studying in
college and working as a shoe salesgirl, because she has a passion for shoes and
dreams of going to the US to learn footwear designing. Her father Abdul Qadir
(Anupam Kher) is an honest court clerk, and eager to get her married before he
retires.
The biggest hitch is his inability to pay the hefty dowry bridegrooms
demand. Here’s one of the film’s problems—it does not take a strong enough
anti-dowry stand. Neither father nor daughter are against dowry per
se, they are against the excessive demands by the grooms’ families.
Fed-up of being rejected, even by the man (Karan Wahi) she falls in love
with, for lack of dowry, Gulrez hatches the scheme of ensnaring a rich groom,
then trapping him in a dowry case and making enough money to get her to
America. And here’s the other big problem, the film advocates misuse
of dowry laws, that are meant to protect hapless victims.
Gulrez pretends to be Sania Habibullah from Dubai, parks herself and her
father in a Lucknow five-star to interview potential suitors. One of
them is Tariq Haider (Aditya Roy Kapur), owner of Lucknow’s most famous kebab
and biryani restaurant. Since he is the richest, he is picked for
the con, but after the three days of courtship that he demands—and this is no
spoiler—Gulrez falls in love with him. He is incredibly generous, considerate,
handsome and smart (why wasn’t he snapped earlier?)
Faisal keeps the tone light and the romance frothy, but there is always
the undercurrent of deception that is unpleasant. If a bright and
talented girl was encouraged to fight dowry in a straightforward manner, and
not resort to crime, the film would have resonated strongly with young women. The
propaganda element is not dulled here, just made unsavoury.
Still, at least Habib Faisal tries to tackle a problem that refuses to go
away, in spite of all the progress Indian woman have made. That, and the lead
pair’s performances, make this one worth a look.
Labels: Cinemaah
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