Such a sparkling journey

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They’re no fuddy duddy buddies. Pretty cool, and enwrapped in their own worlds, each one of them has a distinct personality. Call them 3 Musketeers or 3 Idiots, they’re just about to take off on a Euro-road trip. And during their journey, it never rains on the plains in Spain. Mercy be!

After Luck by Chance, her delicious take on Bollywood, Zoya Akhtar co-writes and directs Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (a bit of lugubrious title that), about a trio with plenty of brio. Nope they don’t tote guns, they’re just out to smell the roses and have some fun. Result: a sparkling entertainer for most of the way. Protracted deep sea and sky diving sequences do tend to go on and yawn. In fact, this smile-raiser does get excessively lengthy and meanders into far too many script by-lanes in the second-half, even turning a tad tortoise-paced. Tsk.

Also, Akhtar seems to carry the baggage of Hollywood’s Hangover and City Slickers, besides echoing elements from Dil Chahta Hai. Perhaps that’s why it takes you a while to warm up to the plot which for once avoids hyper-melodrama like gourmets avoid bhajias. Once the characters and their differing foibles are established though, you’re hooked.

Like all friends, they have certain things in common as well: nostalgia for a crotchety schoolteacher, embarrassment about stealing the other guy’s date, and the repressed desire to just let their hair down, clown, frown, whatever. Boys just want to have fun, once their petty differences are deleted. Nice.

Indeed, Zoya Akhtar’s trump card is in the creation of a zingy ambience. The threesome meet in Barcelona, subsequently halt in picturesque boutique hotels, participate in a ketchup festival (instead of Holi colours, tomato are pelted), all culminating in a death defying confrontation with bulls, running amuck on the streets. Must have been a chore to film.

In lieu of a situational dramaturgy, the script relies on vignettes. Take the hilarious parody of the 'depressing' Doordarshan signature tune of yore. Or one of the guys reciting heavy duty poetry only to be interrupted by a 'Diamond biscuit' commercial jingle (an allusion to J.B. Mangharam bikkies?). Or the chats with a femine tote bag called 'Bagwati', not to forget a Spanish senorita’s indignation when her flamenco is interrupted by the three. Gee!

Usually overdone dramatic factors, requiring reels of footage, are achieved with a few words subtly: it’s conveyed that an apology has to be made from the heart, with conviction. Otherwise the word ‘sorry’ is a mere convenience. And if a woman is self-willed, she can chase her guy, kiss him and say quietly, “I’m not used to feeling down in the dumps.”

Unconventionally, again none in the trio has a do-or-die mission to accomplish.

A money-obsessed business executive (Hrithik Roshan) simply has to loosen up, he has to realise that there’s more to life than video-conferencing with Japanese conglomerates. Mushi mushi.

A more easygoing, puckish sort (Farhan Akhtar) may or may not, eventually, look up his estranged father in Spain. And the ‘judge’ (Abhay Deol) who intervenes in his pals’ bickerings wants to get away, think things out, before he marries an upscale working woman (Kalki Koelchin). She’s even about to give up her job to devote herself completely to the mundane responsibilities of marriage, and the groom-to-be-doesn’t like it.

Now, that’s progressive.

Like Sai Paranjpye and Farah Khan, Zoya Akhtar doesn’t travel the didactic route of a woman’s cause-centric film. She has a whale of a time with her dudes, understanding them much more perceptively than male directors do. Throughout, the dialogue is smart and colloquial. Terrific visuals are extracted from DOP Carlos Catalan and the set design team. The editing, however, is slack. For a director to fall in love with every frame he or she has shot is always a pitfall. Akhtar seems to have succumbed to this. Cut, cut, cut.

And sorry to say, the music score by Ehsaan-Shankar-Loy is disappointing, much too laidback when it should have been rocking.

Of the cast, Abhay Deol and Farhan Akhtar are likeable. Farhan is apportioned the best lines, he’s script author-backed consistently. Surprisingly, Katrina Kaif is impressive: controlled, oozing radiance and often speaking with acurve of her smile.

Clearly, the star power of Hrithik Roshan bolsters the enterprise throughout. Mercurial, he uses eyes, voice and body language uber-expressively. Without him, perhaps there would have been no fizz in Zindagi’s soda. In a word, see.