Tamasha
Year: 2015
Director: Imtiyaz Ali
Cast: Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone

A director on a roll, an actress on the top of her game and an actor who is struggling for a hit… Tamasha is an interesting recipe. It is also teeming with thoughts and ideas.

What’s the plot?

 A guy (Ranbir) meets a girl (Deepika) in Corsica. In a magical foreign land, away from the prying eyes of the world, hiding their real identities from each other, they have a rollicking holiday together. Then they part, promising never to meet again. The girl tries her best to keep her promise but can’t get over the guy and finally tracks him down. But he is not the same as he was in Corsica. Gone is his free-wheeling wild spirit. He is now just another ‘regular’ guy, who is seemingly happy in his nine-to-five job-driven life. Once he was an imaginative boy who loved and believed the old story-teller’s tall tales from the realms of history and mythology. But now those childhood fantasies have melted in face of parental pressures and worldly expectations. The girl is now confused and her reactions trigger a chain of thoughts in the guy’s mind. Who is he really? Is he living life as per his own desires; or simply walking on the path marked for him by the family and the society?

What’s hot? What’s not?

While the writer-director Imtiyaz Ali succeeds in getting across his points, he also disappoints you with some humongous waste of screen time in building up the tempo and regularly keeps losing grip on the proceedings. The first forty-five minutes or so, the film wanders about aimlessly and appears frivolous and self-indulgent. Thankfully it finds its feet in the second half.  At times you really wonder if today’s big budgets are making directors do wasteful things!

 A. R. Rahman’s music is a big letdown and the songs-and-dances in the film are the major hindrances to its story-telling.

The two main performers are the saving grace. Ranbir Kapoor has played many a confused youth role to perfection and here, too he effectively portrays the young man’s dual existence and his internal duel. One scene where he confronts his boss (Vivek Mushran) is hilarious and a high point of the movie.

Deepika looks fabulous and despite having a much shorter and ill-defined role, simply dazzles on screen.

Verdict

Romance merely serves as a trigger point in Tamasha to highlight the daily struggle of human existence. The film asks the right questions….Is life a mere drama, a Tamasha where everyone is playacting a designated role? Can love set us free from conforming ourselves from being just another robot who mechanically keeps doing things? ‘Prim, proper, efficient, responsible’- Is this the only way to live or does ‘Wild, wacky, passionate, reckless’ work better for some?

I wish it had adopted a clearer and more concise cinematic approach to make a better impact!

Rating

2.5 Stars