dangermousie | Luck by Chance: I am in love! (no spoilers)

filmi_girl and I went to see Luck by Chance tonight and I am in love. In love with the movie, for being so brilliant and pitch-perfect, in love with the whole scarily talented Akhtar family (Zoya for directing, Farhan for acting, and Javed for writing) and even in love with Bollywod again.

I haven't precisely fallen out of love with Bollywood but my love did dim somewhat over the last year - it was such an abysmal one for films! That whole year there were only three movies I liked (Jodha-Akbar, Dostana, and Rab Ne Bana. Though I have yet to see Ghajini) and none of them excited a mad passion in me, the way at least a couple of Bollywood movies do each year: there was no Fanaa, no Veer-Zaara, no Swades, no Rang De Basanti, no Saawariya or even Dhoom 2.

But barely a month into 2009, and it is already shaping to be a better year: there will be at least one movie this year that I adore with that mad, mad, joyous love that the best of Bollywood can bring.

LbC is a story of two outsiders struggling to "make it" in the Bollywood film industry, which is notorious for its nepotism: your chances of being cast in a major role, getting a directing gig, etc are slim to none if you are not some star or director's son, niece or second cousin (ironic, seeing that the generation's biggest male and female stars, Shahrukh Khan and Madhuri Dixit, are both outsiders with no connections and made it purely on grit, talent and luck. Learn something from it, Bollywood!)

It is a shockingly uncliche movie, fresh and cynical but not bitter, hopeful and clear-eyed, all at once. Farhan Akhtar (who seriously made a pact with the Devil. How can one man be both a good scriptwriter, a kick-ass (and famous) director, AND apparently an excellent actor who is incredibly hot, remains a mystery) and Konkona Sen Sharma, both excellent, play Vikram and Sona, who eat, drink, and dream movies. They come across as so very real in their frailties and virtues. And the big themes and conflicts are set up from the very start: for example it's clear that Sona just might be too nice a person to fully succeed in this cut-throat world and Vikram just has that unscrupulousness that it takes.

One of the things in this movie that I love best is that it never demonizes anyone: not Farhan's character, who might do a lot of questionable things to get ahead, not Rishi Kapoor's producer, swindling and bargaining his way across, larger than life and someone you rather want around, not Dimple Kapadia's yesteryear's superstar and now star mother (her character might just be my favorite. Her last scene in the movie is is a brief encapsulation of the character and a revelation as well. In some ways, she knows uniuely what it's like to be an outsider. In a way, she likes Vikram not because of the flattery but because she recognizes a certain ambitious, ruthless kinship, I think). Not Hrithik Roshan's superstar Zafar Khan, someone who is almost smart enough to be self-reflective (not to mention the movie's best sequence is the phantasmagoric circus sequence that is the dream number in the movie he is making), not Isha Sharvani's gorgeous, bubbly, and dim star daughter. They are all real, and the movie exposes their flaws at the same time as it understands them.

It is full of small, real moments: Konkona Sen Sharma and Farhan Akhtar on Konkona's old couch, giddy with the promise and hormones of new love. Farhan's friend, letting bitterness slip out after a few drinks. Hrithik pressing his hands and face against the heavily tinted window of his limo while stopped in traffic in some slum where the children gather around his car. The audition of newcomers, where you can almost smell the desperation. Farhan watching Konkona sleep as he dresses. Dimple Kapadia's angry response on the phone to a tabloid article. Isha Sharvani's sensual playfulness in Farhan's room. Konkona's outburst at her journalist friend, etc etc. It all feels wonderfully real. In some ways (even though the movie is very different in topic) it reminds me of the realistic-emotional feel of Rang De Basanti, or even Farhan Akhtar's own Dil Chahta Hai.

Also, I would so love to watch some of the movies they are shown filming: Farhan's movie, or the period movie in which Sona is an extra in the beginning.

I also loved the ending. It made so much sense that they would both be successful in different ways and magnitude but that she wouldn't take him back. Farhan's character was charming and even sweet, but completely unreliable and someone you could not emotionally depend on, not to mention solipcistic. Some women might be OK with that, but not the grounded, severely practical Sona. A lot of those who succeed in this industray are, after all, shown to be emotional cripples in some way or another. Maybe Sona is too sane to be more than a steady worker.

Trailer: