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dangermousieThis is one of the most puzzling BW movies I've seen. Plot: a loving married couple discover the wife is infertile after miscarriage. Since the husband's family wants an heir, wife (Priya, played by Rani Mukherjee) asks unwilling husband (Raj played by Salman Khan) to impregnate another woman. Raj finds a prostitute (Madhu played by Preity Zinta) and we are off...
Preity was great: the more I see her in movies the more impressed I am by how good she is. Salman was also very good (and kept his clothes on the whole time. What’s with that, LOL).
However, I could not get over/past Rani’s character Priya. Rani played her well, of course, but that woman made a Stepford wife seem like Gloria Steinham. This movie was like a wholesome (!!!) version of “French Twist.”
I can see the screenwriter’s dilemma of course: they can’t make Raj want to sleep with another woman, otherwise he is scum. But they have to get him to do it for the plot: so instead of making Raj scummy, they made Priya into a loony.
Now, I can see how a traditional woman who feels guilty about bareness would countenance her husband getting a child with another woman. But to be happy about it? To actually connive at it, and drag her husband into it kicking and screaming? To become “buddy-sisters” with the girl and go around happy and smiling because of the togetherness. That struck me as really disturbing. Raj should have taken the million he was going to pay Madhu and used it to pay for a good psychiatric treatment for Priya.
I also found her pushiness in the matter rather off-putting (she should have been happy that Raj was OK with adoption). And the scene where she connives to strand Raj and Madhu alone: ugh! I suppose we were supposed to think how noble and self-sacrificing she was, but I thought it was severely dysfunctional: I found the scene where Raj realizes what he is supposed to do and starts swilling down liquor and then imagines Madhu as Priya awfully sad and the situation entirely unhealthy. (Of course, this is a huge plot hole: there is no need for the two of them to have sex. Women have babies with sperm from sperm clinics
and they don’t have sex with sperm donors for it, either). To not be too graphic: Raj can ermmm...donate and she can recieve it medically. Without need for sex.
And it’s not only Raj who she makes do what she wants (surely “if you love me, you’ll sleep with someone else” approach is deeply wrong), but she fools the entire family, when there is no need. By the end of the movie, I wanted something heavy to drop on her head.
The controlling-abnegating duality is really fascinating. On one hand, Rani is the one who gets the entire story going, she moves and orders everything: the family hoax, Raj’s sleeping with another woman, etc etc, are all at her insistence. On the other hand, this is all in pursuit of supreme abnegation: “won’t you divorce, Raj? won’t you sleep with another woman for me, Raj? Won’t you take a co-wife, Raj?” This is both the supreme abasement for Priya (nothing matters but the male child) and supreme control-freak action: interestingly, when she offers to Preity to make the whole story public and have her as a co-wife, she doesn’t even think of consulting Raj, whom I would think that would concern pretty closely.
There was a bit or two when everything wasn't as rosy as it seemed: Salman's full of guilt look at Rani "the morning after," Rani looking unhappy in the church while she was waiting for "it" to happen, and a small bit with the looks on Salman and Rani's faces in the song during the happy-healthy-baby ceremony. But overall, the movie bulldozed over these issues completely, and the final offer by Rani to have a co-wife (completely disregarding any effect that would have on Raj and his family) got rid of even the smallest hint that she couldn't deal with it. There really wasn't much doubt that Salman's character wasn't super happy with the arrangement, it was Rani's reaction throughout the movie that bugged me.
It would have been much better if the movie dealt more with the marriage and its dysfinctionality, and if the script agreed that "Priya=brainwashed control freak" and that's why she acts the way she does and "Raj=loves his wife too much," so that's why she can make him do anything. Wound have been an interesting portrayal of a dysfunctional couple.
Anyway: good acting, great music, story is demented.
But Salman's acting is very good and so is the wardrobe so recommended for Salman fans (of which I am one, sorry![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katranna.)
Preity was great: the more I see her in movies the more impressed I am by how good she is. Salman was also very good (and kept his clothes on the whole time. What’s with that, LOL).
However, I could not get over/past Rani’s character Priya. Rani played her well, of course, but that woman made a Stepford wife seem like Gloria Steinham. This movie was like a wholesome (!!!) version of “French Twist.”
I can see the screenwriter’s dilemma of course: they can’t make Raj want to sleep with another woman, otherwise he is scum. But they have to get him to do it for the plot: so instead of making Raj scummy, they made Priya into a loony.
Now, I can see how a traditional woman who feels guilty about bareness would countenance her husband getting a child with another woman. But to be happy about it? To actually connive at it, and drag her husband into it kicking and screaming? To become “buddy-sisters” with the girl and go around happy and smiling because of the togetherness. That struck me as really disturbing. Raj should have taken the million he was going to pay Madhu and used it to pay for a good psychiatric treatment for Priya.
I also found her pushiness in the matter rather off-putting (she should have been happy that Raj was OK with adoption). And the scene where she connives to strand Raj and Madhu alone: ugh! I suppose we were supposed to think how noble and self-sacrificing she was, but I thought it was severely dysfunctional: I found the scene where Raj realizes what he is supposed to do and starts swilling down liquor and then imagines Madhu as Priya awfully sad and the situation entirely unhealthy. (Of course, this is a huge plot hole: there is no need for the two of them to have sex. Women have babies with sperm from sperm clinics
and they don’t have sex with sperm donors for it, either). To not be too graphic: Raj can ermmm...donate and she can recieve it medically. Without need for sex.
And it’s not only Raj who she makes do what she wants (surely “if you love me, you’ll sleep with someone else” approach is deeply wrong), but she fools the entire family, when there is no need. By the end of the movie, I wanted something heavy to drop on her head.
The controlling-abnegating duality is really fascinating. On one hand, Rani is the one who gets the entire story going, she moves and orders everything: the family hoax, Raj’s sleeping with another woman, etc etc, are all at her insistence. On the other hand, this is all in pursuit of supreme abnegation: “won’t you divorce, Raj? won’t you sleep with another woman for me, Raj? Won’t you take a co-wife, Raj?” This is both the supreme abasement for Priya (nothing matters but the male child) and supreme control-freak action: interestingly, when she offers to Preity to make the whole story public and have her as a co-wife, she doesn’t even think of consulting Raj, whom I would think that would concern pretty closely.
There was a bit or two when everything wasn't as rosy as it seemed: Salman's full of guilt look at Rani "the morning after," Rani looking unhappy in the church while she was waiting for "it" to happen, and a small bit with the looks on Salman and Rani's faces in the song during the happy-healthy-baby ceremony. But overall, the movie bulldozed over these issues completely, and the final offer by Rani to have a co-wife (completely disregarding any effect that would have on Raj and his family) got rid of even the smallest hint that she couldn't deal with it. There really wasn't much doubt that Salman's character wasn't super happy with the arrangement, it was Rani's reaction throughout the movie that bugged me.
It would have been much better if the movie dealt more with the marriage and its dysfinctionality, and if the script agreed that "Priya=brainwashed control freak" and that's why she acts the way she does and "Raj=loves his wife too much," so that's why she can make him do anything. Wound have been an interesting portrayal of a dysfunctional couple.
Anyway: good acting, great music, story is demented.
But Salman's acting is very good and so is the wardrobe so recommended for Salman fans (of which I am one, sorry
katranna.)
