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Cinema fascinates, provokes, inspires and entertains more powerfully than any other media. Shaaditimes seeks to understand and interpret human relationships in all its nuances.
What better way to explore these intricacies than reviewing films that explore the agonies and ecstasies of human relationships?
If you too want to review any such film please do send it in to the editor.
Pritish Nandy Communications'
Pyaar Ke Side/Effects
Rating: 
Produced by Pritish and Rongita Nandy
Written and directed by Saket Choudhury
Music by Pritam
Featuring Mallika Sherawat, Rahul Bose, Sharat Saxena, Tarana Raja, Aamir Bashir, Ranvir Shorey, Suchitra Pillai, Jas Arora and special appearance: Sophie Choudhry
Tasteless Medicine
Pyaar Ke Side/Effects (wonder why '/' is used instead of the grammatically apt hyphen?) conclusively proves that ideas do not translate into good films - scripts do. Essentially a story of a young man born to a man who deserted his wife and a spoilt, rich girl prone to do her own thing without any regard for others, it could have been an interestingly tangy study or satire on human failings.
Not only is Sid (Rahul Bose) under the delusion that he is happy with his life and clear about what he thinks are his desires in life (and marriage heads his list of aversions!) but he is hell-bent on continuing his three-year-old romance with Delhi babe Trisha (Mallika Sherawat) who has run away from a marriage to Mr Eligible Bachelor (Jas Arora) who is her parents' choice and a successful executive.
 Trouble is, Trisha isn't gung-ho about prevarication about marriage, pre-marital sex et al and is very keen on kids, and for Sid marriage is akin to a horrifying concept that happens only to unfortunate souls. He is particularly aghast at the idea of a non-single status, fatherhood and all the evils associated with a shaadi with Trisha that will involve greater interaction with her horror of a martinet father, General Malik (Sharat Saxena), her friend (Suchitra Pillai) who cannot stand him and the other evils like shopping for everything from furniture to linen.
Sid's wannabe-playboy roommate Nanu (Ranvir Shorey) and his brother-in-law Kapil (Aamir Bashir)'s dysfunctional relationship with Sid's sister Shalini (Tarana Raja) are further dampeners to the already confused Sid. And when a brief stay at Trisha's house leads to friction over everything from Sid's income as a DJ to his father's character, Sid and Trisha split.
What happens after this point is the classic case of a rubber band stretched beyond its elastic limit - along with the audience's patience levels. The jokes are bland, ordinary and fail to raise more than a few chuckles. The characters of Baby Girl Volume 3 (!) Tanya (Sophie Choudhry) and Trisha's ex-fiance-turned-current fiance stroll in and out at the writer's will and do not create anything special by way of fun or drama. The climax had its funny side, but the direction ensures that it seems very silly rather than humorous. In the end, one just wonders why Sid and Trisha were so confused in their attitudes. If the filmmakers could not raise sympathy for their characters and the kind of relationships they shared with each other and buddies, they should at least have been food for some great humour and satire that was deep inside the core of the plot.
Writer-director Saket Choudhury fails to exploit his own idea and his `modern' (sic) technique of getting the hero to talk to the audience is a complete irritant. The hero says "What?????" about 5 million times in the film and that is EXASPERATING! But then one also thinks that this is exactly what we want to ask the makers of this film - 'What?????', 'What kind of asses do you think we audiences are?', 'What were you thinking of when you actually wrote this unfunny script that stretches a 50-minute idea into 150????' Well, 'What?????' The music is a sore point, though the background score helps the film.
Among the performances, Mallika is delightful, and is the chief reason that you sit through. But Rahul Bose is here, there and everywhere, being completely himself for the n-th time and he makes the film insufferable. The rest of the cast do not have much to do, but Ranvir Shorey, Suchitra Pillai and Sharat Saxena liven up the dull proceedings on occasion. If you pay money to watch this film, the side-effects (side/effect) is sheer ennui. My advice: Don't waste money or time on this tasteless medicine.
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The views expressed above are of the writer and shaaditimes does not necessarily endorse the same.
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Rajiv Vijayakar
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