Sensitive romance is strangely unsatisfying
The young leads of ‘Kedarnath’ lack chemistry through no fault of their own
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, pictured, has said that people of Mumbai need to make a magical Mumbai for themselves.
Shah Rukh lauded the resilience and patience of the city of Mumbai and its people.
“I think more than patience, people of Mumbai have resilience in their personality,” he said.
“I think the other thing that we should add to Mumbaikars is to add the magical part of Mumbaikar. Our Mumbai is resilient and beautiful but we need to make a magical Mumbai,” he added.
Shah Rukh will next be seen in Zero along with Katrina Kaif and Anushka Sharma. It releases in theatres on December 21. | IANS DIRECTOR Abhishek Kapoor’s Kedarnath wears its premise on its title. It is sensitive, competently crafted and appears genuinely regional in flavour.
It also brings together two opposing worlds of Indian cinema: the narrative of the traditional cinema of the 1970s and the modern technicalities of the 21st century. Sequences remind you of films like Waqt, Jai Santoshi Maa and Mother India.
The director drops viewers into the picturesque pilgrim town of Kedarnath and introduces us to the harmonious lives of its residents: human-porters called “pithoo” and shop-cum-lodge owners, and tells us how their lives are dependent on the flow of the pilgrims.
And despite being a pilgrim centre for Hindus, a few Muslim families live there, too.
Soon the narrative focuses on the affable Mansoor (Sushant Singh Rajput) a human porter and Mandakini aka Muku (Sara Ali Khan), the rebellious daughter of a local businessman. How romance brews between the two forms a major part of the narrative. Director: Cast: Rating: ★★★✩✩
The plot is an interesting one that feels timeless and current in the way it plays with romance and a recent natural calamity.
What holds your attention is the cast. While Sushant delivers a sincere performance, all eyes are on Sara, who makes her debut with this film. As the spunky Mandakini, she reminds you of her mother Amrita Singh in her debut, Betaab.
While Sushant and Sara deliver their chops earnestly, they lack on-screen chemistry – the fault lies not with them but with the script.
In conventional roles are Nishant Dahiya as Kullu the local politician and Mandakini’s fiancé, Nitish Bharadwaj as Mandakini’s father “Pandit”, Pooja Gor as her sister, and Alka Amin as Mansoor’s mother. They deliver uniformly strong performances.
Technically, the film is astutely mounted. Cinematographer Tushar Kanti Ray uses the fluidity of the hand-held cameras in an attempt to capture the freshness of a spontaneous experience.
The action and melodrama sequences too are competently handled.
Hitesh Soni’s music brings Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics to life. The songs Qaafirana and Namo Namo, sung by Arijit Singh and Amit Trivedi respectively, add a mystical flavour to the narrative.
Chandan Arora’s editing has the finelytuned, perfect blend of every technical element that it takes to make a great film, especially the climax, which is painstakingly done by incorporating effects with sound design and music into a seamless fabric that is emotionally satisfying.
But overall, while blending a fictional, inter-faith romance with a historical natural disaster, the film suffers to some degree from the maker’s romantic and idealistic ideas and thereby leave you unsatisfied.