Yaaaay, another Shahrukh review! See how I am sneaking them in under the guise of “Friday Classics” even now that Shahrukh Month is over? Oh, and plus Juhi in a really nice role, for her birthday. Although Aaina is a better Juhi movie, remember to watch it for this Sunday if at all possible! It’s also a wonderful Amrita Singh movie, if this film makes you want more of her.
Well, now I know why I always have such a hard time remembering this movie! It’s actually many movies smushed together in a confusing way. The best of them being the SRK-Juhi romance movie, which is what I remember, but I can’t remember how it ends, because by the time it ends, it has somehow become a social drama.
This movie released one month before the start of the Bombay riots, after years of communal tensions in the country growing and growing. In a way it’s a little time capsule of that moment, when the city was still happily united across religious lines, but fault lines were already beginning to grow. Bombay was a place of young people falling in love, opportunities everywhere, and a community that grew up on the sidewalks. But also a place of casual heartless death and blame being placed on the lowest and most fragile of the community.
But then there’s Juhi and Shahrukh! And Shahrukh and Amrita too. It’s a funny love triangle in terms of casting, on the one hand you have Juhi and Shahrukh who will end up being close friends and business partners in later years. And on the other hand you have Amrita and Shahrukh who grew up together, his only and oldest friend in Bombay. The end result is a triangle where you can see real chemistry with both woman, but at the same time only true love with one of them. Shahrukh and Juhi in this are the perfect couple, the young fragile almost holy version of young love which forces all who see it to bless it. It is a love that Amrita, or anything or anyone else, cannot really harm.
That’s what makes this film so delightful and so memorable. The little moments of waiting outside the office for a “casual” meeting, having a date with no money, hiding by the sea like all the other young couples, being embarrassed to be caught holding hands in the street. It’s the sort of magical-but-real romance we hardly ever see on film. Showing us how all young love and all love is magical, just because it is love, even without the big song numbers and fantasies and all the rest of it.
Shahrukh and Juhi are so young, and so fragile looking. His face as a sort of half-grown intensity to it, especially when he looks at her. And she is so uncertain of her feelings, so sure she shouldn’t be feeling them but at the same time unable to stop herself. They both give remarkable performances, Juhi taking her young innocent and making it something a little more, and Shahrukh taking a role that could have been just a watered down Raj Kapoor and making it his own.
That’s the other influence on this of course, Shree 420. Plotwise it is barely connected, but what matters is the feel of it. Shree 420‘s most memorable moment is the song in the rain, a young couple in love in Bombay with no money and no prospects, huddled together under the same umbrella, but in love and happy despite it all. That’s what the whole Juhi-Shahrukh track of this movie is about, being so young and so in love that it makes you stupid happy, so happy you don’t even see the world clearly any more, you think anything can happen and will happen.
One more thing before I move on. Amrita’s character, perhaps truly unique. She should be the “evil” woman, but she really isn’t. She is as sincere and good and straightforward and fragile as Juhi. It’s a wonderful performance from her, in a more complex role than the one Juhi plays, and a reminder (if I needed one) that Amrita was always one of the best and most interesting actresses.
It is the situation around her that becomes evil, becomes toxic for Shahrukh. And, I think, this is more accurate to how this story would play out in real life. Would a woman fall in love with a man without any reason or encouragement and then destroy him simply because he does not return her feelings? Seems unlikely. But would a woman have other people in her life who resent her choice for a variety of reasons and try to stop her from getting what she wants? Seems far more likely.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
I’ll start with the elements taken from Shree 420. A poor boy comes to Bombay with an education and no money. He falls in with a gang of pavement dwellers who adopt him and fights with and eventually falls in love with a young woman who lives in the neighborhood. He struggles to make his way in the city with the hope of getting established enough so that he can marry the woman he loves. Along the way, he falls in with a wealthy crowd who use his pure face and innocence as a front for their schemes. He loses the woman he loves when she is disgusted by his pursuit of money, but it still does not stop him. Only when he discovers how he has let down the community of pavement dwellers who first adopted him does he repent. He risks himself to give a passionate public statement against his co-conspirators and then leaves the city with even less than he had when he arrived. At the last minute, the girl he loves chases after him, the two of them starting their lives together with nothing but dreams.
Now, what is DIFFERENT in Raju Ban Gaye Gentleman? First, our hero arrives in Bombay with a specific goal that is actually achievable. He has a degree in Civil Engineering and is smart and good at it. He gets a good job on his own merit. He could marry the girl he loves without needing to resort to crooked schemes. This is Bombay in the 90s, anything and everything is in fact possible. The key is to know when to stop, to know when to be satisfied.
Second, the heroine is very different. Nargis in Shree 420 is strong and independent. She teaches the slum children and has her own morality and sense of right and wrong. She picks out and pursues Raj. Juhi, in this, is not independent. She is a young girl who is completely overcome by Shahrukh’s pursuit of and love for her. Late in the film she tells him that she has nothing but her love for him and we believe her. She is that kind of a person, very young and very in love and with tiny little dreams that revolve fully around being in love. Not weak, she is capable of taking her own stand, but not independent and adult like Nargis. Even though she has her own job at Shahrukh and Amrita’s company, somehow she doesn’t feel like someone who is able to stand on her own.
Third, the “evil woman” is complete different. In Shree 420, Cuckoo is the set up woman for a gang of conman. She barely has a character beyond that, certainly her relationship with Raj is very shallow. Not so with Amrita in this film. Amrita is perhaps the most complex and developed character. She is successful in her own right, intelligent and experienced. She first notices Shahrukh because she is the only person in the board room smart enough to appreciate what he is saying. And she falls in love with him slowly, through real interactions, appreciating his fast talk and funny unique style. She stands up to her father and the world, ready to defend her love. Only to be heartbroken when she learns he is in love with someone else. But she does not take petty revenge, she hardens and hides her broken heart, withdrawing from him but not trying to harm him. When he comes to her, she is delighted and quick to smile and enjoy it, she is still human, not a saint enough to send him back to the other woman. But in the end she is a good woman, the reason she loved Shahrukh was because his honesty and intelligence and decency called out to an essential honesty and intelligence and decency within her. And so she stands by him to call out those around them who were evil for their own ends. She is even more heroic than he, standing against her own father.
(In real life, their mother’s were friends back in Delhi and Amrita and Shahrukh used to play together. She is 6 years older than him, so they weren’t super close, but he’s known her most of his life)
And fourth, most important, the social message is very different. Back in the 1950s, Raj Kapoor was concerned with the growing power of the wealthy elites, the way the desperate poor were beginning to stream into the city and the rich were not willing to give them a chance, give them space to grow. The evil scheme his character proposed was a promise of affordable housing, a chit fund subscribed by the poor and homeless that was never going to turn into the houses they were promised. It is strict social theory, class and money based alone.
In the 1990s, money is good. Ambition is good. A smart young man can come to Bombay and make a place for himself. It may not be as fast as he wishes, but he can do it. There is still that heartbreak of a young romance desperate for fruition held back by the economy, but it is a young heartbreak, a heartbreak confident of eventually things working out.
What has turned soar is the people. The rich aren’t just cold and greedy and uncaring, they are vicious and animalistic. Jealousy over Amrita’s love for Shahrukh causes her father and a fellow businessman to join hands an make sure that Shahrukh’s bridge collapses due to shoddy concrete. The public is calling for blood, and suddenly the film takes a turn.
We have already had two films, but at least they were loosely connected. Shahrukh and Juhi fell in love, Shahrukh got his job on merit and rapidly was promoted and promoted, all seemed well. But at the same time a danger to their love started with Shahrukh’s boss Amrita falling in love with them. That’s film 1.
Film 2 starts when Juhi fights with Shahrukh over him turning different by spending too much time with rich people at work and they break up. Shahrukh, now alone, begins to cut corners at work, drink, go to the race track, and spend more and more time with Amrita. Shahrukh is being corrupted by the rich, it is now a character study of him alone and not a romance. But that’s still connected to the first half, he was young and innocent in his love for Juhi and that started him on this path, now his relationship with Amrita is turning him evil and so on and so forth.
But now at the last minute with have a Film 3 which is SUPER DIFFERENT. Shahrukh is turning evil and ambitious and willing to do anything, blah blah, makes sense. But then his bridge falls and he goes on TV and says it was done by “Terrorists”, the partyline that his boss is ordering him to follow. And later his car is stopped by Nana Patakar (the spirit of Bombay who befriended him and has been occasionally narrating to the crowd like a Greek chorus of what is happening), who drags him back to the old neighborhood to force him to watch the funeral of the three workers killed, his old friends who he hired on to the job as a favor and who are now not just dead, but dead with their names dragged through the mud as “terrorists”.
This part was very hard to watch. Because I could feel the real anger coming through from Aziz Mirza and everyone else involved who was telling this part of the story. Real anger at the innocents whose deaths are written off as “terrorists”. At the way those in power go on TV and lie, and convince others to lie, and eventually convince them that there is no real harm in those lies. That the bodies laying in the streets are somehow turned into un-humans, sins aren’t really sins, murder isn’t really murder, it’s all about the narrative you are selling to save your own skins. And a month later, 900 people would be laying dead in the streets of Bombay with no justice ever coming for them and no one to speak for them-“terrorists”.
For me, the film never really recovers from that peak moment. Shahrukh decides to do the right thing, threatens and beats his boss into a confession, goes to the courts, fights off terrifying armed men to testify, and so on and so on. But I was still stuck in the anger of that previous moment and couldn’t quite get past it to pay attention to the rest.
Do you know the movie The Sky’s the Limit? It’s a WWII film from 1943. I don’t know what was going on in the world of the filmmakers at that moment, but I am guessing nothing good. Fred Astaire plays a war hero with PTSD (they didn’t call it that, but that’s what it was) who is sent home on leave and just wants to forget everything. He tries to fall in love, to be happy, to be “normal”, but he can’t. Towards the end of the film he bursts out in this terrifying powerful song number that starts light and then descends into violence. And the film never really comes back from that, you can’t go that deep and that dark and that real and then expect us to care about anything else that happens.
(I could also have mentioned the yatra scene from Raees, but I wanted to show you this song. Isn’t it good?)
That’s my problem with the end of this film. I sort of get the bends, I can’t go all the way down to the anger and darkness of that one scene when Nana confronts Shahrukh with what he has become and what he has done, and then come back up again for the romance. Wonderful though the ending of the romance is.
Both romances really, we also have Amrita working through her emotions and testifying in support of Shahrukh because it is the right thing to do and she owes it to him for how she (unwittingly) played with his life. And we have Juhi showing up at court to support Shahrukh and forgive him for what he has become. Until the final moment of the film, Shahrukh walking away from her, from Bombay, until he looks back and meets her eyes and rushes into her arms, love triumphing. A very different ending from Shree 420 for a different kind of India. The “real” India lives in the city as well as the country now, rather than Nargis abandoning Bombay to following Raj to the country, Juhi is keeping Shahrukh with her in Bombay to try to serve the people there.
I should say, part of the reason it is hard for me to put this movie together in mind is all the many parts it has, but it’s also because there are so many strong moments that stand out from their context. The way Juhi smiles and softly says “okay” when Shahrukh pressures her to put on the sexy dress he has bought her. The way Amrita smiles and joyfully sucks on her fingers when Shahrukh teaches her how to clean her hands with no napkins. Juhi’s dignity as she confronts Amrita in her office and tells her of her little dreams for her life without shame, and gives in her resignation letter before she can be fired. And of course, the car salesman scene. Which goes from sweet to sexy to romantic and brave all at once. Shahrukh badgering Juhi into visiting a car showroom, the two of them cutely pretending to be a married couple shopping for a car and enjoying the fantasy. Then Shahrukh badgering Juhi to sit in the car and taking the opportunity for a little private romance in this one small private space they can borrow in Bombay, desperately begging for just a kiss or a look. And then once they are out of the car, Shahrukh taking a moment to turn back and admit that they cannot afford a car now, but that he makes a promise to the salesman and Juhi, one day he will come back and buy a car for her. It’s just everything that is wonderful about young love, the innocence combined with passion, and the crazed confidence in the future. That alone makes this whole film something special.
dontcallitbollywood 
Am I crazy or is Raees also a version of the same story/stories?
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Kind of, but I think without the component of the “country boy arrives in Bombay” and “first true love that goes unfulfilled because he is distracted by wealth” it is missing the essential elements.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 7:31 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I’m so glad you reviewed this. I see some things pretty differently, probably in part because of my biases (I love social dramas where the message doesn’t get in the way of a good story, I love worldy-wise and almost supernatural characters like Nana’s, and I love Aziz Mirza’s straightforward style), and partly because this is a regular re-watch for me, so the themes seem woven together throughout, and the emotional impact of the very sweet or very dark moments has smoothed out a bit. Yay, run on sentences.
Mainly, I see Juhi’s character pretty differently. I’m in meetings all day but will comment more later. I super duper love the first song and the title song also. Can live without Loveria Hua. 🙂
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I am so looking forward to your thoughts! I think I have only watched this movie twice and it still hasn’t quite settled in my brain into a pattern that makes sense. I’m still sort of running to catch up with the plot changes instead of seeing them coming and how the film prepares for them.
And how can you live without “Loveria Hua”????? It’s so cute! It’s the one thing I remember clearly from the movie from every watch.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 9:22 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I don’t know exactly why. Normally I don’t mind schmaltzy cute songs. Maybe because the male singer’s voice doesn’t match with Shah Rukh very well.
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I can’t watch Ram-Jaane again most because the male singer feels so “wrong” for Shahrukh. Everything else that is terrible about that movie I can overlook, but the voice miss-match keeps taking me out of it, making me go “hey! That’s not Shahrukh! He’s LIPSYNCHING!!!!”
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 9:48 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I have the same problem with the first song in Baazigar, with Shah Rukh and Shilpa frolicking around. I like the song but that voice would never come out of Shah Rukh’s tiny bod.
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I used to have a really hard time with Arijit singing for Shahrukh, Gerua in particular just felt “wrong”, but I think somehow during JHMS they made their peace with each other and match up a lot more. It’s mysterious how the playback singer/actor combos just “work” sometimes!
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 10:18 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I feel the same about Arijit and Gerua. But it worked fine in Kashmir Main… from CE, and yes, in JHMS too.
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Maybe it’s just the belting it out songs he can’t do? When it is light and fast his voice works, but the rough kind of tone to his voice that sneaks in with the ballads is no good? Because Zaalima really bothers me too, although I love the song as a song, it just doesn’t feel right on Shahrukh.
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Quite possibly yes.
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Ok, lunch break! I don’t see Juhi as being as emotionally young and naive as Shah Rukh. And I think that she certainly can stand on her own, because she has been, and taking care of her father to boot, since before Shah Rukh shows up. She is a moral but kind person. The neighbors are kind of scared of her, but also affectionate towards her. She is Shah Rukh’s ticket into the neighborhood in the same way that Nana is. I think her being solidly middle class fits into the stuff you are talking about about class being the big divide, not religion, and about striving for material wealth being ok in the 90s. She’s a go getter also, but with more modest dreams than Shah Rukh. And she is a bit too good to be true–no fun complicated arc like Shah Rukh and Amrita get to have.
I love your description of their young love being the kind that is almost holy, that compels people to bless it. And the love triangle is what makes the movie compelling too. You nailed Amrita’s character. I love her so much. One difference between she and Juhi is that Amrita’s values are just a bit off, because of being raised rich, arrogant, and a bit blind to the impact of her family business on more vulnerable people. Juhi’s moral compass is unshakeable throughout the story, but Amrita, as you point out, stumbles and has to re-adjust hers. Amrita’s feelings for Shah Rukh, while sad because unrequited, help her become a better person.
I didn’t find the social themes to stand out so much from the love story. Nana’s character and speeches, from the temple scene with Shah Rukh to his public performances, interweaves those themes in throughout, so they become the backdrop to the triangle and Shah Rukh’s growing up. I know what you mean about the darkest scenes being so out of tune with the rest that they can pop you out of the movie. To be honest I only watch the scene with the call girls in the hotel and the scene with the neighbor’s bodies about every other watch.
My very favorite scene in the movie is when Shah Rukh and Juhi come walking down the street together and Nana predicts/narrates each step of their wooing to the other cafe patrons/neighbors. When he says, “then she’ll drum on the bannister, tam daka dak tah!”, it just kills me for some reason. And the neighbors are so happy for them! My favorite line is in that scene when Nana is telling them of his first great love, and one of the neighbors says, “why didn’t you marry her?”. Nana says, with perfect delivery, “I forgot.” We the audience don’t know if he means “I forgot to marry her” or “I’ve forgotten why I didn’t marry her.” Very clever. This is why it kills me that Nana is a creep. He’s a pure working class angel in RBGG, and now that character is a bit tainted for me.
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What I notice with Juhi is that she is so vulnerable to Shahrukh’s love and betrayal. Which is what makes the love triangle work so well, we worry about her, worry that Shahrukh will pull her into something she doesn’t want just because she loves him so much. But of course he doesn’t, not really. He convinces her to wear a sexy dress and forgive him when he forgets a dinner date, but when it gets to matters of morality and life, she will not budge. But it’s that initial vulnerability which makes her sacrifice matter, if that makes sense? If she was less sweet and innocent and in love, then we wouldn’t feel the pull as much when she walks away from him.
Oh, and what I forgot to say in the review, I love that the film and Shahrukh’s performance are so clear through out that there is only one woman in the world for him ever. He doesn’t pick Amrita over Juhi, never thinks about her that way, he picks money and ambition over love. Since Juhi is the only woman he could ever love. The moment at the end when he is so surprised at the idea that Amrita thinks he could marry her is wonderful. It also makes Amrita a much stronger character, Shahrukh respects her and spends time with her because of who she is as a person, not because he ever feels a glimmer of romance for her.
Having the neighbors be so happy for them, and the theme of all the young lovers of Bombay that weaves through the film is so refreshing! I’ve almost gotten used to love being treated as a dirty word, the way it is in public discourse in India and in the society presented in a lot of the films. But in this movie, everyone is just happy about it! A boy and girl in love is normal and healthy and wonderful.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 12:37 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I love that part about the clear difference between how Shah Rukh feels about Juhi and how he feels about Amrita too. And I think he’s good at showing that kind of friendly respect to Amrita in the movie because that’s how he feels about many of the women in his life.
I tie Juhi being so fully in love and vulnerable to hurt from Shah Rukh to be a sign of her relative emotional maturity rather than her being young or naive. She is just ready to settle down, and has a better understanding of how precious and fragile love is, that Shah Rukh doesn’t have yet. So he can be blinded by success, power, and wealth in a way that she can’t be.
I wish more people would see this movie! I tried to get a set of 20 and 30 something year old Indian colleagues to watch this with me. The 40+ year olds remembered the movie fondly, but the minute the younger bunch saw the grainy opening with “GP Sippy”, they all said–oh this is so old! Let’s watch something else!
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Yes! The interaction with Amrita reminded me so much of how he is in real life with the women he respects and works with! And the interaction with Juhi reminded me so much of how he is with Gauri, fell in love with her so young and before anything had really happened in his life and it just never occurred to him that there could ever be another woman. Which I guess goes together, since for his character/reality his first love is the only woman he could ever see romantically, that means with all other woman he is relaxed and friendly because he just sees them as friends. No need to be extra shy or extra romantic.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 1:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I am in the middle of rewatching this for the maybe 3rd time. I LOVE the opening scene when he is leaving home. That is up there with his first entrance in Deewana on the motorcycle. You see all that he was when he first arrived in Mumbai. Thoughts in random order: I hate that Nana has been ruined. He was so good and interesting in this and now I can’t watch those scenes. He can no longer be the moral greek chorus. Next, it took me way to long to realize that Amrita was Saif’s ex. (I got that years ago, but not when I first saw it.) She changed so much. Although you can see her daughter in her now.
I have to say that one of my most favorite scenes is the one where they go to look at cars. He is terribly and a tad inappropriately cheeky in the car. Which is how that boy would be. He get near the line but not cross it. But when he goes back to the salesman seriously, you see the man he should become. The question of the film is: will he.
I think Amrita’s character is just as you say, Margaret. She is nuanced and not all good or all bad. She carries the court room scene. I have to go now, but I’ll write more tomorrow.
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I love the car scene! And the dress scene. And really most of their scenes together, there is some element of him pushing her to the limits of her comfort zone. But, that is true to the character. And to the kind of romance it is. If we are to believe that they are real average young people passionately in love with each other, than part of that is Shahrukh’s character pushing and pushing for more and more physical affection, and using that as part of his marker of how much she loves him. And we also know that he wouldn’t really cross the line, because what he is pushing for is so small, he wants her to wear a sleeveless dress, or kiss his cheek, and that’s all. And you said it perfectly, the scene inside the car is him pushing like the boy he is, but the scene when he goes back to the salesman is him growing into the man he could be.
On Fri, Nov 16, 2018 at 3:13 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I don’t really have much constructive to say but both this movie and Yes Boss are much darker than what they seem like on the outside. They’re both very grounded yet fun movies.
So which of the two would say is your favorite?
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I think I like Yes Boss slightly better. I think Raju is the better movie in its individual elements, the little scenes like the car shopping scene are just perfect. But I think Yes Boss fits together slightly better as a whole movie.
On Sat, Nov 17, 2018 at 9:30 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I just watched this for the first time after seeing this (8 part!) narration by Vivek Vaswani that Claudia posted about how SRK got his start in movies:
Watching this as the movie designed to launch him added some interesting layers. To me this is a classic story of power/money corrupts. Shah Rukh is the pure-hearted young man come to the big city with his ambition, the central plot tension is if he will be able to find the success he seeks without being corrupted by the world of money and power he’s breaking into. (The perfect character for a young actor starting out who aspires to be a star.) Juhi symbolizes his purity and conscience, his better angels. Amrita is temptation. Nana is the voice of the real Bombay, los de abajo, the people who make up the lifeblood of the city. (I didn’t know about Nana until I came here and now I’m so disappointed! He’s wonderful in this role.)
The tone felt consistent with the purpose to me. The beginning is lighter because Shah Rukh is still poor and innocent. I loved the beginning of his and Juhi’s love story, how they quarrel and then feel bad for hurting one another, and that mutual compassion is essentially what brings them together. The middle is the evolution of the characters as the romance moves toward marriage at the same time that Shah Rukh starts to climb quickly in the company. I think Amrita is attracted to him as down to earth and different from what she knows, and different from rich people = purer and better in the moral universe of the movie. The roadside restaurant scene is Amrita’s exposure to the real city, which parallels Juhi’s temptation scene with the strapless dress. (In the end, we see Amrita has been changed by her love, while Juhi has remained steadfast to who she always was, though perhaps her ability to forgive Shah Rukh and take him back is evidence of a small shift.)
Rising action: our hero is tempted and fails the test twice, the first time when he delivers the bribe, and the second when Juhi gives her ultimatum and he chooses the company over her/his conscience. He wanders lost for a time through the false paradise of money and privilege. (The car buying scene with Amrita shows the falseness.) The third time is the ultimate betrayal. He has been betrayed himself, and yet he speaks on TV for the ones who are dragging him down, turning his back on the people of the real city. This leads to the climax of Nana dragging him out of the fancy car to face the truth. Crisis of conscience, redemption through suffering. Saved in the end by truth and a return to his humble purity, and redeemed by love – first Amrita’s, then Juhi’s. That ending moment is lovely.
Anyway, I liked this one, it’s a new favorite of his early films. Didn’t know about Amrita being a childhood friend, that makes sense why she agreed to do the role. Bonus imagining him and Juhi meeting for the first time, or people seeing him onscreen for the first or second time. It all feels so fresh and new, something being born.
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What a great comment! If I was choosing based on quality versus quantity you might be on contention for this week’s card.
Great discussion of the themes of the films, did you know it is a remake of a classic movie? If not I am even more impressed because the themes you pick out are far more blatant in the original. Shree 420 from back in the 1950s is explicitly a metaphor for the youth of India post-Independence choosing between honesty and fast money. Our hero arrives in Bombay, meets a decent girl, but can’t get a job. He is finally discovered by a team of card sharks and conmen who start using him, he becomes rich by lying and cheating and so on. The love triangle isn’t really a triangle in that one, there is the decent girl he loves, and there is the Bad Woman who first discovers him and brings him into crime. But she is kind of a shallow character, no investigation of her emotions or motivations, she is just there to contrast a “good” Indian woman with a “bad” Indian woman.
Oh, also in the original, it is an old woman who is in the Nana role. Our hero arrives in the city and buys a banana from her, an tricks her when giving change to make sure he OVER pays. She calls him “son”, he calls her “mother”. She is part of a pavement dwelling community and welcomes him into their group when he doesn’t have anywhere else to stay that night. And then at the end she dies? Or yells at him? I can’t remember, something dramatic that calls back to their relationship as “mother” and “son” and makes him finally see what he is doing wrong in a way that losing his girlfriend didn’t.
One other thing I can add from the original, the original film is famous for the romance. It has the first “walking in the rain with an umbrella” love song. And I feel like this film captured that part of it perfectly, the pain and joy of first love, how this innocent happy young couple can also feel so much for each other. This one makes it a love triangle, but a one-sided one, we never doubt that it is Juhi Shahrukh truly loves, Amrita is alone in her feelings.
On Sun, Nov 10, 2019 at 8:54 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I picked up that it was a remake from your review, but I haven’t seen Shree 420. Based on your description, I could see how the writer for RBGG might have taken the original plot and given it an extra turn to bring the moral dimension of the story and characters a little more to the surface. Not that the romance isn’t important or Amrita and Juhi’s – even Shah Rukh’s – characters aren’t three dimensional, they are, but the place they occupy as archetypes also seems to me clear and uncomplicated in this version. In a way it might not have been in the original? IDK. And then of course the bad guys/ forces of corruption have been updated to the times. Instead of the underworld, we have unethical developers and the corrupt politicians who abet them. I liked your point about how the different time period changed what was possible for the characters, and the nature of the city they were navigating.
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Are you ready for how symbolic the original is? Our innocent young hero arrives in the city and can’t find a job. So he pawns his two prized possessions, his diploma and his medal for honesty. Yes, in the city our country boy literally sells his education and his honesty.
On Mon, Nov 11, 2019 at 8:53 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Ha! Not to be too on the nose :).
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