Love’s labour lost

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Ekk Deewana Tha is being marketed as an A.R. Rahman and Javed Akhtar musical. But this film’s music is the sort that is often referred to by annoying scoffers to challenge Mr Rahman’s genius before delivering a lecture about how repetitive he is, and how limited his repertoire; and Mr Akhtar’s lyrics are the sort that make you want to sit at Gulzar’s feet and never, ever leave. So, the music in this musical ain’t really happening.

Now the film. Ekk Deewana Tha is a Bollywoodised version of writer-director Gautham Vasudev Menon’s own hit Tamil film Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa (Will you Cross the Skies and Come?). I have seen the original, in parts on YouTube, and can tell you that while Vinnaithaandi Varuvaayaa is a nice film, compared to its made-for-Bollywood batata-vada, it’s seminal stuff.
For one, the hero and the heroine in the original — Silambarasan Rajendar and Trisha Krishnan — can act. Second, its story and characters belong to the world the film is set in, and all the bits and baubles of location, dialogue, supporting characters, cinematography and music lend it a moody, romantic charm. And third, its end has a nice’n’nasty bite. All this is missing from the Hindi remake.
Ekk Deewana Tha is set in Mumbai but it travels for a brief but beautiful interlude to Alleppey. The story is about Sachin (Prateik Babbar), a 22-year-old Marathi Hindu, and his landlord’s daughter Jessie (Amy Jackson). Sachin falls for Jessie the moment he sets his eyes on her. Bit by bit it unravels that Sachin has many obstacles — there’s the fact that Sachin is an engineer by training whose passion lies in filmmaking, while Jessie is a Malayali Christian from an orthodox family where even film viewing is considered an offence. There is also Jessie’s tall, lawyer father and her burly brother. Then there’s the fact that Jessie is one year older than Sachin and has a proper job (she’s a programme analyst), while he hangs around a cameraman on film sets in the hope of getting a break.
But Sachin’s biggest problem is that while he is besotted, Jessie doesn’t seem to even notice him. So Sachin stalks her — he’s at her bus stop, at the KFC next to her office, or dangles on their common entrance gate when it’s time for her to return — and suddenly one day, after they are introduced by his sister, tells her that he loves her. Jessie leaves for Kerala the very next day, and Sachin follows her, with mentor-friend-guide Anay (Manu Rishi). He meets Jessie, says sorry for shocking her with his sudden disclosure, and adds, “I’m crazy about you.”
Jessie says, don’t waste your time. Sachin says, let’s na, please. Let’s at least play friends-friends before I bite your lips. Jessie says, okay. But biting happens too soon, and is followed by tall father and burly brother finding out about this love ka chakkar. They drag Jessie to a church, to say “I do” to a rather cute boy, Roy Thomas, but she says “I don’t.”
This is the first half of the film and is told to us in flashback, along with Sachin’s commentary and many choreographed dances where Jessie skips in the margins in slo-mo. The second half of the film is about what happens after Jessie storms out of the church in her wedding finery.

Gautham Vasudev Menon had written a sweet, silly story about love and the many appams one has to learn to roll before life begins to look like what it is in dreams. And in Ekk Deewana Tha that’s what holds our attention — the love story. Because of the Hindu-Christian angle, and because we are not too sure about what love means to youngsters these days, we sit through this dippy affair more out of politeness than creative curiosity. We just want to see off the boy and girl to their happily ever after. But what we get at the end is a narcissistic monologue about how great the film is.
Prateik Babbar is cute, a half-decent dancer (top half), and he does the lost puppy look rather well. And in Ekk Deewana Tha we get glimpses of him shirtless, suggesting that he may soon become a fully-formed eight-pack torso as well. But he can’t act. He can give an expression or he can flail his arms about. He can’t do the two together.
Amy Jackson, an English model who won the Miss Teen World competition in 2008, and has posed for calendars in kinky underwear, sometimes while licking flavoured ice-lollies, is also cute and I would have been able to comment on her acting abilities if I wasn’t distracted by her makeup. Poor thing, all through the film she looks as if a basket of oranges burst in her face. My guess is that the eager Bollywood makeup people were trying to make her “look south Indian”. Her makeup is so thick and of such peculiar shades that when she cries her tears create bright white lines on both sides of her nose. But, luckily for her, the bra department more than made up for the disservice of the makeup department with their special uplifting devices.
Ekk Deewana Tha has efficient supporting actors, but we don’t spend any time with them. The only treat we are allowed is Manu Rishi, and thank God for him. Imagine travelling to Kerala alone with one-trick Babbar.