Gender equality is the easiest thing to talk
about these days, if you really want to make a deliberate statement about how ‘cool’
you are. Can you guess what is more effortless than that? Women liberation, especially
if you’re a posing intellectual and a gentleman. I presume you can
differentiate the two from the word go; because I don’t think the advertising
guru-turned-filmmaker R Balki is very comfortable with that. His
role-reversal drama KI & KA is exactly like its title;
sounds unique and interesting but is confusing, forced and dramatic most of the
time. Balki tries to address the relevance
of the issue in his most honest & thoughtful manner but fails to make it
relatable and logical. I fear the search for ‘coolness’ in everything he shows
gets rammed over by his over-confident storytelling.
KIA [Kareena Kapoor] is one of those rare
girls who are a complete misfit in any grand and loud Indian wedding party. Such
type exists? Anyway, she sees marriages as a big and bold full-stop to the girl’s
individuality, personally and professionally. Next, she meets a crying handsome
co-passenger KABIR [Arjun Kapoor] in a flight. Cool? Yeah; keep
counting. KABIR wants to be a house-husband. Aspirations to earn big positions
in any multi-national company or to take shit-load of salary home every month
don’t excite him really. He fancies being an artist who makes ‘Homes’ rather
than houses like his mother was. It’s a perfect setup. The girl is focused to
take control of her promising professional career in the out world and the boy
has no shilly-shallying attitude in running the house like a pro. Such a smooth
trip until a few fuzzy faceoff incidents takes place in the relationship
involving one’s unexpected expansion from being a house-husband to a TEDX
celebrity-talker and the other’s steaming ego-issues.
Balki treats his concept of
role-reversal in marriage as if it is something very alien and novel idea to
the society. On the contrary, it is not. But Balki makes it look so dramatic, droll and desired that it
starts irritating you after a while. Soon, his role-reversal theory starts bothering
you as a futile role-play. The man becomes a woman and the woman acts like a man.
Meanwhile, Balki decides to keep the spotlight on all the ‘cool’ gimmicks
rather than exploring the emotional storm within. You see Arjun Kapoor
charming married ladies in his neighborhood while giving them a fitness session
or inviting them for a kitty-party. His love for riding a Segway or for that
matter, making his home a train-toy museum too is more of a ‘cool’ addition to
the style than to the substance. In fact, the initiative to put female artists’
name ahead of their male co-artistes in the opening titles loses its steam when
it comes to other technical credits. Why is a female assistant director not given
the same respect? Because you don’t give a damn!
KI & KA also doesn’t
oblige you much if you’re seeking something outstanding in the performances. Kareena
Kapoor Khan hams like there is no tomorrow. All she does in the name of
acting is to intimidate you with her sparkly wide-eyed expressions and all the increasing
now-reducing then redness on her face. Arjun Kapoor, on the other
hand, does give you some freshness even if it is exaggerated and overacted. Rajit
Kapoor and Swaroop Sampat are extremely delightful faces
you would always love to see on screen. Though the writing again makes them
stereotyped parents who either would end up being very friendly to their kids
or totally cold towards them! Amitabh Bachchan & Jaya Bachchan
play themselves in the most celebrated scene as a cameo. The scene beautifully
tickles the idea they tackled together on screen in Hrishikesh Mukherji’s
ABHIMAAN. It is also supposedly a tour to their drawing room.
Coming from the background of
advertising world, Balki makes sure everything looks perfectly placed,
lit and shot but he often misses the relativity of the context and in the
content. In one scene, Kareena being a marketing professional throws an
idea to sell an edible oil product at 50% off if the husbands would make the buying.
Her case is that no Indian husband buys grocery and this will improve the sales.
In other, we are informed that the couple pays 10,000/- salary to their
part-time maid in Delhi. What a promising job opportunity hidden there! Mr.
Balki sure belongs to the same rarest wing Kareena targets in the
film. Better watch the new ARIEL- share the load commercial, if you want
something progressive and feminist in true respect! [2/5]
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