Its awesome, after
highway a great makeover for Alia..looking more pretty in the colorful south
india look.
The much awaited and
hyped movie “2 States” at-last reached theater on today(18-April). After
reading the Chetan Bhagat’s book 2 States , a huge number of youth’s become his
followers. But now, it’s the turn to Arjun and Alia, the onscreen chemistry
between those pretty youngsters become at its peek…
In one line it’s a colorful
pretty love story that not ever seen before in bollywood, it’s the real life
story of the writer Chetan Bhagat.
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Krish Malhotra (Arjun
Kapoor) and Ananya Swaminathan (Alia Bhatt) meet at IIM A and fall in love. It
takes a while to reach the state where they want marriage, and that is all to
the good. This part of the film is light and frothy, with both Arjun Kapoor and
Alia Bhatt rubbing off each other, and managing to generate some electricity
while they tumble in and out of bed and class and graduating day ceremonies.
It’s the
meet–the-parents aspect of the plot, based on Chetan Bhagat’s autobiographical
novel of the same name, that becomes too much: just why are parents in this day
and age so fiercely opposed to the union of ‘chicken’ and ‘sambhar’? Mr
Malhotra (Ronit Roy) drinks and is obnoxious. Mrs Malhotra (Amrita Singh) feels
that Ananya has ‘phansaaoed’ their ‘gora chitta ladka’. The truth is that
Ananya is more ‘gori’ and ‘chitti’ than their sonny boy, and holds down an
equally well-paying job. So what’s the problem?
Krish’s mom is
submissive and passive-aggressive, like all good moms of boys who think their
‘laadla’ is being stolen away, but her downer against Ananya seems to have no
real reason, just like in the book: culturally opposed parents may start off
warring, but they also have ways of getting around these things without so much
pointless sparring. Is this film coming out in 2014 or in the 60s?
The Swaminathans
(Shiv Subramaniam and Revathy, well cast) live in Mylapore, and are the
biggest cliche in the piece: they are grumpy and unfriendly, he drinks coffee
and refuses to smile and she wears Kanjeevaram and does ditto, even though they
come around to Krish faster than his parents to Ananya. South Indians can scowl
and live in spare homes and sing Carnatic music, but the film exaggerates
both the cultural
specificities and the spurious differences.
When the going is good,
both Kapoor and Bhatt, she more than he, rise above the film’s flaws. He has a
few good moments. But Alia Bhatt is a surprise. She leaves behind her earlier
films, and gets into her character: she may not be an authentic ‘Southie’ in
terms of body language, but she is all girl, easy and fresh and natural.
I was hoping to see in
a story that is familiar – marrying across the great cultural divide of the
north and the south – and yet always relevant as well as bursting with
possibilities. What could've been a truly engaging and witty look at a clash of
sensibilities turns out to be a typically superficial Bollywood ‘entertainer’.
