From Sydney with Love

Rope, no hope. An overwrought girl is just about to hang herself from a ceiling fan, when this dude walks into the room, looks at her coolly and asks, “Wassup?”

Ha, ha that’s a genuinely funny moment, and mercy be, there’s more such wacko humour in this West Bengal-Sydney-West Bengal love story. Actually the Australian hopover is totally redundant; all the fun-’n’-drama kick off only when the camera returns to home soil. If zoo vistas of kangaroos and koala bears are meant to arouse the viewer’s interest, sorry, such visuals are just a Google tap away. Ooof.
Waste of resources, all that dhinka-chika stuff at the Oz waterfronts and night-clubs. In fact, you might want to give up on From Sydney with Love at intermission point. So far, it’s been a dozefest but you’ll be glad you stayed. The pace picks up, the script gets imaginative and debut-making director-cum-actor Prateek Chakravarty displays his knowledge of mainstream cinema grammar inherited from his grandfather Pramod Chakravarty. It’s the international jiggery pokery that’s a downer. When the screenplay shifts to Bolpur (or that’s what it sounded like), the triangular romance rocks. Serious suggestion: see it after the interval. The story, then, twists and turns, almost as if it was the work of another writer.
Honestly, till then, you’ve clutched your head with grief: Bengal village girl (Bidita Baig) travels to study at the New South of Wales University. Instantly, the desi girl prompts every Indian student there go apples and bananas. An overweight Billy Bunter type (Prateek) and a Chocolate sort (Sharad Malhotra) follow her as if they were Mary’s little lambs. A disco-sizzled night, later, she’s majorly upset on waking up in the bed of chocolate. Tremble tremble.
Distraught by that bedroom night (a la Band Baaja Baarat), she flies back to her village. Relief. It’s in the decaying rural haveli that the plot starts hubbling and bubbling, what with both Bunter and Chocolate quite clueless about how to handle the moods of Ms Desi. She glares-stares till a domestic crisis, involving the imminent wedding of her sister, makes her vulnerable. Suffice it to say she has to choose, eventually between Bunter and Chocolate. Loony characters like a reformed roadside Romeo, a prankster kid, and a permanently grinning domestic aid, are a welcome change after the downpour of boys-meet-girls cliches in the Australian first-half.
It’s quite a pleasant surprise that newbie Prateek Chakravarty displays a command on the technical front, extracting competent work from his cinematographer, editor and sound designer. The music score, though, is strictly commonplace.
Also, there’s a consistent youthful spirit about the enterprise which is quite engaging, like a soccer bout between weaklings and hunks. Above all, at least three performances are above the average cut: Prateek establishes a warm and endearing, at times even self-mocking screen presence. And Bidita Baig has a way of talking with her eyes. Evelyn Sharma, the Oz girl who’s like do-gooder Betty from the Archie comics, may resemble Dia Mirza but is an infinitely superior actress. Here’s hoping to see more of Prateek, Bidita and Evelyn. Sharad Malhotra as the conventional hero doesn’t seem to have anything that’s distinctive or unusual about him; he could have been more candid than glam-sham.

PS: There were quite a few releases this week — Joker, Jalpari and I M 24 (terrible title that). On flipping a coin, twice over, From Sydney with Love, turned out to be my choice. So should you head for it? Umm, toss a coin too.