Another Review of 'Khoya Khoya Chand'

The settings and the mood were brilliant. The clothes, the hairstyles, the songs, the music composing sessions so different from today’s technologically superior studios, the same casting couch problems, the Bengali director high on artistic integrity and liquor, the Punjabi producer shamelessly spouting commercialism and neither character coming across as stereotypes. Alas, the principal character is the victim of this attention to detail on everything else.

Nikhat (Soha Ali Khan) is supposed to be an actress who is exploited by everyone, manages to make it as a success in Bollywood and then takes up drinking as her career and personal life nosedive. Sadly it is a rare moment when you can understand or empathise with Nikhat. She looks the same whether it is confessing her first casting couch experience at 14, or discovering that her memories of a loving father are not true or buying liquor surreptitiously from a bootlegger. In a scale of ‘how much I empathized with the character’, if Mr Bean scored a 3, Nikhat would score 1. Especially considering that I was pre disposed to weep for her as she is supposed to be based on real life heroines like Waheeda Rehman who did suffer a lot of trauma.

Rajat Kapoor as the aging hero, Premkumar, has a great role and does it well. Shiney Ahuja as the self-involved writer Zafar again vacillates from realistic to uni-dimensional. Peripheral support characters like Vinay Pathak, Saurabh Shukla, Sonya Jehan shine.

The movie reminded me of some of the dinners I have been to. The table is set right, complete with excellent chinaware and filled with well-garnished, delectable looking items, but the actual food usually tastes average. Looks great for a photo shoot but you can never forget yourself in it.

By,
Anita B.
(Read other posts by Anita B. at http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)