I watched this movie because of the refreshing music and the shooting at foreign locations that I saw in the trailer. It was a mistake. I should have known better that nice music and shooting at breathtaking locales does not equal a good film.
The movie's weakest point is its story. Without going into details I'll say that it is full of stereotypes. Deepika plays Veronica- an independent girl who drinks, wears short clothes, visits night clubs and loves having casual sex. She also does not understand basic decency. She is supposed to be seen by the audience as the 'modern' girl because of her 'forwardness'. Diana plays Mira- a damsel-in- distress type girl who wears salwar kameez every other day, does pooja everyday, knows how to cook, has no self esteem and no self confidence. The audience is supposed to see her as the desi behenji Indian girl(because of her 'backwardness'?). Saif plays Gautam- A guy who seems to want to flirt with every girl right from the moment he sees her.
Can you see how the stereotypes are framed here? When are the Indian script writers going to stop portraying women as 'pure' and 'impure'? Just because a girl wears short clothes does not mean she likes drinking or having casual sex. Just because she drinks does not mean she loves having sex with random guys. Just because she has sex with a guy, even if she does not have serious feelings of love for him, does not make her 'impure' or 'slutty'. It is this outdated mindset of Indian society which is impure. It is a personal choice when a girl wants to have sex and portraying her as a slut because of her sexual forwardness in such movies is not just outdated but also sexist(The story never talks much about Gautam's 'purity' even if he has sex with multiple women). In one of the scenes Veronica tells Gautam "I can be pure too". I wanted to shout at her and tell her "you don't have to be 'pure', you are already pure. If you try to be like someone else, then you will actually become fake/impure." It is movies like this which encourages the Indian mentality that 'It is OK to rape a girl because she asked for it because she was wearing short clothes'. On the other hand not every girl who is religious and wears traditional clothes is good, innocent or 'pure'. I know many girls who do those things and are mean bitches. Also, the lack of self esteem in a person is not a good quality, it is a bad one.
The acting is not remarkable either. Saif overacts in almost every scene and looks too old to flirt with young women. In real life, a young girl would/should call the cops if someone like him tried to flirt with her. He seemed like a pervert. Diana does not understand how to give facial expressions for different emotions. The only good acting was from Deepika. Dimple and Boman Irani had very short roles. The main characters, who are supposed to have the 'happy ending' lack chemistry. The dialogues lack originality and are forgettable. At some points I didn't understand what a character is trying convey with his/her dialogues. They were that bad. The direction was hopeless too. In some scenes I thought the director is trying to stretch out the movie to make it more than 2 hours long even when there is nothing happening in the scene or there are no dialogues. Sadly, there were many such scenes. The music of the songs was very good but the lyrics were not.
Apart from Deepika's acting, foot-tapping music by Pritam and one hilarious scene where Saif dances on a famous Bollywood item song, there was nothing entertaining about the movie.
It's because of movies like these that I keep wanting to give up on Bollywood.
The movie's weakest point is its story. Without going into details I'll say that it is full of stereotypes. Deepika plays Veronica- an independent girl who drinks, wears short clothes, visits night clubs and loves having casual sex. She also does not understand basic decency. She is supposed to be seen by the audience as the 'modern' girl because of her 'forwardness'. Diana plays Mira- a damsel-in- distress type girl who wears salwar kameez every other day, does pooja everyday, knows how to cook, has no self esteem and no self confidence. The audience is supposed to see her as the desi behenji Indian girl(because of her 'backwardness'?). Saif plays Gautam- A guy who seems to want to flirt with every girl right from the moment he sees her.
Can you see how the stereotypes are framed here? When are the Indian script writers going to stop portraying women as 'pure' and 'impure'? Just because a girl wears short clothes does not mean she likes drinking or having casual sex. Just because she drinks does not mean she loves having sex with random guys. Just because she has sex with a guy, even if she does not have serious feelings of love for him, does not make her 'impure' or 'slutty'. It is this outdated mindset of Indian society which is impure. It is a personal choice when a girl wants to have sex and portraying her as a slut because of her sexual forwardness in such movies is not just outdated but also sexist(The story never talks much about Gautam's 'purity' even if he has sex with multiple women). In one of the scenes Veronica tells Gautam "I can be pure too". I wanted to shout at her and tell her "you don't have to be 'pure', you are already pure. If you try to be like someone else, then you will actually become fake/impure." It is movies like this which encourages the Indian mentality that 'It is OK to rape a girl because she asked for it because she was wearing short clothes'. On the other hand not every girl who is religious and wears traditional clothes is good, innocent or 'pure'. I know many girls who do those things and are mean bitches. Also, the lack of self esteem in a person is not a good quality, it is a bad one.
The acting is not remarkable either. Saif overacts in almost every scene and looks too old to flirt with young women. In real life, a young girl would/should call the cops if someone like him tried to flirt with her. He seemed like a pervert. Diana does not understand how to give facial expressions for different emotions. The only good acting was from Deepika. Dimple and Boman Irani had very short roles. The main characters, who are supposed to have the 'happy ending' lack chemistry. The dialogues lack originality and are forgettable. At some points I didn't understand what a character is trying convey with his/her dialogues. They were that bad. The direction was hopeless too. In some scenes I thought the director is trying to stretch out the movie to make it more than 2 hours long even when there is nothing happening in the scene or there are no dialogues. Sadly, there were many such scenes. The music of the songs was very good but the lyrics were not.
Apart from Deepika's acting, foot-tapping music by Pritam and one hilarious scene where Saif dances on a famous Bollywood item song, there was nothing entertaining about the movie.
It's because of movies like these that I keep wanting to give up on Bollywood.