Monday, October 05, 2009

Wake Up Sid!!!


These days in bollywood, its becoming a fashion now for established producers to give break to new directors, the new age ones with serious talents and for these new age directors it again has become a fashion to bring to us a movie based upon the life of 21st generation youth, about their aimlessness in life, about their kinda weird approach to relations and towards themselves.
Now, since this is becoming a fashion it is getting somewhat stereotyped in bollywood for such movies. You have a handsome young guy in his cotton printed t-shirts and jeans, spending hours and hours in front of his Apple laptops and loves to feel the breeze over his face from the window and roof pan of his Honda CR-V and when asked about what he does, his reply is "I spend my papa's money." Now, to go with this son-of-a-rich-man, there has to be some rich man as his father to take care of the bills of his credit cards and who has, obviously, yet another story of starting his career with a ten rupees note in his pocket. Then, as he is worried about his son, the relationship between them is not a perfect one and hence as a link between the father and the son there has to be a cute sweet mom who wants to be her son's friend by speaking her tooti-footi Hinglish. To go with all of these there must be one chhotu to pull the curtains off in the morning when the sun rays starts disturbing that guy in his sleep; some friends at the college to pass his time off and make use of his credit card and above all one lady who is career oriented, has her ambitions in life and changes that guy, makes a man out of that boy.
Well, this story must have been looking like the first half of Lakshya but wait, this is Wake Up Sid, first-timer Ayan Mukherji directed new release from Karan Johar. This is the story about this stereotypical character Sid, Siddharth Mehra (Ranbir Kapoor) who says "who cares about tomorrow" and why should he if he has credit cards in the pocket whose bills are being paid without problems by his father. This wikipedia article gives the synopsis of the plot.
Even if the movie is a stereotyped bollywood new age film, it is fresh and doesn't bore you. The acting from everybody is simply perfect. Ranbeer is improving with every film and Konkana, with every film it seems that she has given her best but in the next one she simply outperforms herself and thats what she has done here too. It seems that if sometime she does underperform in some film then it would be the top breaking news on AAJ TAK. Anyways, Supriya Pathak, the Konkona of early 80s, looked too cute and sweet as the mom. Anupam Kher as the father is brilliant, of course, it is also obvious for him. The debutant director Ayan Mukheji's work is highly appreciable and for Karan Johar, I think its better to get out of Shahrukh's shade. I think he was ruining himself with Shahrukh Khan and his style of even more stereotyped bollywood dramas.
Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy's music is refreshing and youthful. All the songs are beautiful and the one 'Iktara' composed by guest composer Amit Trivedi, the emotional atyachar fame, is the best for me. And then, once again, another of the 'stereotypes' of today's bollywood, you have some old numbers playing every once and often in the film and no prizes in guessing, yes, Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Ye is again there but this time with this there are some others also that includes Hemant Kumar's ever-beautiful 'Na Tum Hame Jano.'
All in all, a good movie that worths watching............................................

4 comments:

K said...

Wake Up Sid was painful to watch. We have seen so much of the 'aimless youth(s) get(s) on track' that we don't really need one more movie on the same lines. (think Amir Khan's character in DCH and Lakshya)in any case, wake up sid was shallow, stereotyping every rich kid and rich dad. konkona sen treats all roles in commercial movies the same way. thinking back,one can easily mix up her characters in Metro, Luck By Chance, Wake Up Sid-her acting is the same in all of them. She needs an Aparna Sen and a Mr and Mrs Iyer to set her back on track!!

Aashu said...

@K: I completely agree with you on the point that we really don't need yet another movie on "rich-spoilt guys" genre. But there is a quotient of entertainment that comes with cinema and for me Wake Up Sid was thr with the entertainment inspite of being a bollywood cliche. I would have got bores easily with this film for its story but somewhere there was a freshness that made me sit through it.
Anyways, looking back from now, I don't think I like it that much presently as I did when I watched it. It is just an OK certainly not great and, of course, nowhere near Lakshya or Dil Chahta Hai.

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