BY JYOTHSNA HEGDE

Director: Madhur Bhandarkar, Producer: Madhur Bhandarkar, Ronnie Screwvala
Cast: Kareena Kapoor, Arjun Rampal, Randeep Hooda, Shahana Goswami, Kanika Dhillon, Shilpi Sharma, Ranvir Shorey, Helen (guest appearance)


Bhandarkar’s Heroine dwells in a realm of self-destruction and wallows in self-pity all the time. Success, fame and fortune that she worked for, it seems, mean nothing to her. The reason for this sad saga could have made for an interesting story build up, but Bhandarkar and his writers Anuradha Tiwari, Manoj Tyagi and Niranjan Iyengar chose to offer a half-baked, superficial and rather lazy explanation– the heroine had a disturbed childhood and suffers from bipolar disorder. How, where and why was this girl interrupted? Sadly, we never find out. Riding heavy on black and white dissections of morality, Bhandarkar chooses a sleazy tabloid approach to uncovering the life story of a heroine where sex, lies and videos are bountiful; her attitude, fretful; her decisions, regretful; her love life, remorseful and the narrative essentially one dimensional, judgmental even.

Bhandarkar’s voyeuristic viewpoint zooms into the life and times of Mahi Arora (Kareena Kapoor), the quintessential stereotypical image of a Bollywood heroine from a pedestrian perspective. She pops pills, is in a relationship with a married co-star, and is unstable and unpredictable, we are told. She has a lot to deal with, upcoming younger stars, endorsement renewals, shaky relations, sharky journalists, an unforgiving and manipulative industry where every Friday marks the beginning or end of careers. Using Mahi’s so called history as an excuse, her character trembles into shambles at the first sign of trouble and lands up creating only more, irreversible ones eventually.

We are introduced to Mahi’s mother who is seen sharing a drink and smoke with her daughter. She is also in a relationship with a cabinet minister. There are no shades of gray in Bhandakar’s cinema space, only black and white, good or bad. So Mahi’s mom’s lifestyle is classified categorically bad. And then there are Mahi’s love interests, A very married Aryan ( Arjun Rampal) and Cricket team Vice Captain Angad ( Randeep Hooda). Aryan is not ready to commit to Mahi and Mahi is not ready to commit to Angad. Mahi’s career is going down, so her psychologist advices her get a hold of her life. Enter Pallavi Nayar (Divya Dutta), the PR exec who builds images. “You have to be a player now” she tells Mahi. Dutta’s Nayar suggests that a leaked sex tape leads to a film’s success. Maybe it does. Subtle, gentle treatment of cinema is not this director’s forte, you can tell. One well etched character, Shagufta Rizwi played by Helen who Mahi respects and is seen with occasionally is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise gloomy milieu.

In her acceptance speech for lifetime achievement award, Shagufta Rizwi chooses to thank everyone that supported her and emphatically the ones that abandoned her –she rightly points out that they are the ones that teach life’s most valuable lessons. She also warns that fame takes away more than what it brings to a person. If such profound thought process was imbibed within the storyline, instead of mere dialogues, Heroine could have been a worthy watch. In its place we have a bunch of “references” to real life incidents that made it to gossip headlines, such as an actress dating a cricketer (Yuvraj and Dippy ??) , a hero that cuts out his heroine’s scenes ( Akki?? ), which in itself is unintentionally interesting to spot!

Heroine is bogged down by clichés of all kind –gay designers in pink shirts, the term ‘babes’ used over and over to a point of irritation, sexual favors of all kinds and possible combinations, including dialogues like ”Iss glamour industry main kaun fraud nahi hota”. Sex and power play are center of the Hindi movie industry, it is implied (well, isn’t that true for all industries these days, I wonder). All of this may very well be part and parcel of the glitterati, but its presentation lacks finesse and subtlety. It is merely put out there, as if laid out for a weekly tabloid, rather carelessly, very obviously.

Despite the script, or lack of it thereof, Kareena truly hold her own.  Having been on top for several years, Kareena knows what she is portraying and does complete justice to her role. As ravishing as she looks gryrating to ‘Halkat Jawani’, she abandons all reservations in displaying the ugly, desperate, insecure and scorned side of her personality. She is a treat to watch. Unfortunately for her and the audience, the maker forgot to add layers and substantial reasoning to her personality – just like his moral compass, she runs on high or low, no explanations offered.  Bhandarkar probably figured featuring glamorized stereotypes would suffice. Reality cinema needs to be treated with a special touch, where subtlety is key and reality presented in its raw format as in “Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahati Hoon”.

Everyone including the common man realizes that it is rather lonely at the top. But there needs to be a positive and upbeat side to fame and fortune, too and the director needs to balance the two and to be fair, present both the ups and downs and let the viewer conclude. If the director decides to pick a side, as it is evident in this case, Bhandarkar was going for the downside of fame and fortune, then, there needs to be a well structured, sketched character that the audience can empathize with, tracing the journey from start to finish. Bhandarkar’s Heroine starts from what seems to be a downfall and then eventually lands back there in a jiffy, with very few memorable moments. One line worth mentioning would be “Hamari industry mein zip aur zabaan dono band rakhni chahiye”. There is no time for the audience to connect with her rise or fall and yet it seems like forever before we get to the end!

There is an underlying sadness and bitterness in the leitmotif of the narrative that is never quite explained and eventually translates into a long, boring, and never ending saga of melancholy. Wish the bright fuchsia pink Kareena glowed in could add some color to this Heroine, sadly, it does not.  If you are a Kareena fan, this is a must watch – she is hot and happening, the movie itself, not so much.