Movie Review: Salaam-e-Ishq

My god, it was simply impossible to get through to Inox the two days before the release of this movie! After my fiance told me it was quite light-hearted and fun and that it would be a hit, my curiosity was aroused a little (as opposed to its non-existence before as I heard it was a copy of Love Actually which wasnt ALL that funny, in fact rather fantastical).

And what do you know, an aunty n my building offered to take all the members of the building ladies' club to see it and I piled on! Hehehe! With free cheese and caramel popcorn and a rather bad samosa at metro Adlabs (yeah the food sucks. I MISS INTERMISSION!), we had quite a gala time - about 20-odd middle-aged women, who weren't too amused by the movie, and me.

Let me first say, I liked it! (All in all anyway). The movie has borrowed the concept of Love Actually, that is. six different stories playing simultaneously, with a few becoming connectd in quite funky serendipitous ways - but I can see how it could have been shorter - on the other hand, a couple of the stories, though rather annoying and unrealistic, do provide scope for the OTT antics and songs that filmmakers put in for the more stupid sections of the audience.

I dont know, should I tell you the story? Will you want to see it? It's a leave your brains at home kind of film. The songs actually are MUCH better when you hear them in context of the film, and many of them are really really fun.

Dont see it for the clothes. Dont see it for Priyanka Chopra (who is pretty much typecast at this point, who can only do sexy/sweet girl roles and who looks like she has had a nose job, though her tiny round belly looks cute) or Salman (who looks washed out as hell and who is hamming as much as Shahrukh did in Don). Dont see it for the makeup. Dont see it for either Sohail Khan's or Anil Kapoor's noses (Anil Kapoor just cant do the whole shaven thing the way he did in Lamhe - now, he just looks like Sanjay Kapoor on crack). Dont see it for 2 of the stories, which are unrealistic, or the third, which is just... zany.

See it for the gentle romance between John Abraham and Vidya Balan (and her acting!!!!), for Govinda's garrulousness, for that Stephanie's adroable, incomprehensible Hindi and the American lilt she gives her sentences, especially at the end! for the songs, for the colours and the settings, for Akshaye's modern-bachelor angst at tying the knot, for the heavy feeling that overcomes you on entering Anil Kapoor's world, for Sohail Khan's hilarious horniness, for the brutal fact that most Indian men just want to scew around with foreign women but come home to mummy-daddy's values, for how the love of one helps the marriage of the other, for how the truth as revealed in The Little Prince is proven once again - that it is the time you spend with the one you love that makes him/her the most special person in the world.

Still, the Priyanka-Salman story is a waste of time (though its quite funny that she is an item girl and one of her outfits and sets looks just like Malaika's in Chaiyya Chaiyya), damn unrealistic and stupid, and that is the longest that too! We would wait for Vidya to come back on screen, or Akshaye, or Govinda, because you really want those stories resolved in a constructive way. And in the end, we really do want to be idealistic. We really do want to believe that true love conquers all, that love never dies or fades over time, that it is an investment in life. But you know what struck me the most about many of the stories? You know what they tell women - always go for a man who loves you more than you love him. Its very true. Even the movie doesnt contest that.

Marry a good man, despite the evdent odds, believe in yourself, and hope for the best.

Yup, that's life.