Indian wedding

Pritish Nandy Communications
Just Married

Produced by: Pritish Nandy, Rangita Pritish Nandy
Director: Meghna Gulzar
Music by: Pritam
Dialogues: Anurag Kashyap
Featuring : Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol, Kirron Kher, Satish Shah, Sadia Sidiqque, Mukul Dev, Tarina Patel, Raj Zutshi, Perizaad Zorabian, Bikram Saluja

The journey does not entice
Just Married is a story of two young individuals unknown to each other, brought together by marriage. How they deal with their newfound status and find the common ground to begin their journey together makes the whole film. During this journey, one meets four other couples, who have their own battles of love and relationships to fight. Interesting premise. If only the film had lived up to half the interest it generated... Sigh.

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A loose and almost tacky screenplay is the bane of the film, something that the able direction of the talented Meghna Gulzar tries to overcome but saving a badly written film is hardly possible ever. The pace of the film is slow, which is fine. But the events that happen within it are insignificant hence the pace starts irritating after a point. The other four couples keep the momentum going but the uni-dimensional characterisation does not let any love-story go beyond a point, which is the audience's loss. There was so much of potential there.

In the love-story of Fardeen (Abhay) and Esha (Ritika), the character of Fardeen is multi-faceted and endearing but the character of Esha is never introduced properly at all. Ritika fails to rise beyond the coy, confused girl after showing a lot of possibilities of involved characterisation in the beginning. One of the many reasons, why their journey into togetherness does not entice! There are moments, which spell sensitivity, and it is to the credit of the director and the actors to have brought out the nuances of confusion, awkwardness, propriety, fear consummate. But again, it seems like not the characters but the script itself did not know what to do with their relationship.

The premise of the film is very sound. That a marriage has to be based on a lot of understanding, patience, companionship, will to learn and listen, keeping an open mind and of course love. The central embodiment of this is Abhay, who despite being as confused and perplexed as Ritika, is pro-active in creating a sound base for their relationship by investing the above things. These elements are also propagated through the experiences and words of the other eight characters. But despite the good intentions, the film again falls short of being wholesome because too much is told and not much seen or felt. The writer (Meghna herself) forgets that a story about relationships has to be seen and felt and not heard.

Technically, the film is strictly average. A bit disappointing if one expected some beautiful breath-taking views and poetic music outlaying the romantic atmosphere of honeymoon couples. The absence of these does not handicap the film but their presence could have heightened the flavour a lot more. Editing meets the demands of the script except for the climax, which was incredibly silly and so out of sync with the rest of the film that the least said about it the better. Gulzar saab's lyrics are quirky and full of its pungent-ness but the sensitivity of his poetry would have elevated the film in some measure. Pritam's music is average except the foot-tapping 'Raam milaye jodi' and costumes are pretty and pertinent.

The high point of the film is the verve the other eight actors add to the film. Despite uni-dimensional characters, each actor invests in bringing out the nuances of his/her role except Bikram Saluja who really needs to take acting classes. While Kirron Kher is trapped inside a stereotypical role of an aging, nagging wife, Perizaad is lovely in her role of the other woman. Sadia Siddique is touching in her sensitive portrayal and Mukul Dev satisfies. Satish Shah, Raj Zutshi and newcomer Tarina Patel have little to do but thankfully do not drag the film down.

Esha and Fardeen turn in a refreshing and credible performance, which keeps you wanting for more. Sadly, you are disappointed at every point. That is the bane of the film, which promises a lot and stops delivering just before the promises are fulfilled. The film disappoints if one is looking for the complexities of relationships and psyches that was so very well charted in Meghna's debut 'Filhaal'. Although, the film is at par on the scale of sensitivity it fails to match up on various other aspects technical and emotional.

One can watch it just for the moments between Esha and Fardeen during their first few days together alone but that's about all one takes away from the film. Watch it without any expectations and you just might come away feeling good.

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