Life in a Metro

After long Hindi cinema has finally taken the jump and started dealing with more in depth emotional subjects. We get intelligent dialogue that looks and comes across naturally. Real issues faced by the modern Indians of today brought to life in this brilliant thought provoking films. that leaves you questioning several aspects of the movie. Shilpa's acting is the best I have seen out of all her movies. Konkona, Kangana, Irfan, Shiny, Kay Kay and Sharman have all acted brilliantly. the scenes between Shilpa and Shiny have been done brilliantly as have the scenes between Dharmendra and Shivani. The film starts of interestingly and engrosses you further, as the story unfolds. the soundtrack lends itself beautifully to the surroundings and you get a sense of a modern vibrant moving city with real people leading real lives (not your usual song and dance sequences around the world) This film portrays a deeper unexplored side of human nature that is very rarely addressed in Hindi films. Brilliantly shot and acted. A must see film.

Inspired by Love Actually and that genre of storytelling, "Life in a Metro" is a sometimes insightful and sometimes predictable movie that is well worth a watch for its performances. The narrative featuring Kay Kay and Shilpa Shetty is genuine with many insightful comments -Shilpa Shetty's about the "deafening silences in marriages", the interesting question of which between physical or emotional infidelity is worse. Kay Kay's character of being a loving father who is adored by his daughter was a further dose of realism. Nothing is black and white. Special mention to both Kay Kay and Shilpa Shetty (didn't realise she had it in her) for really pulling it off. Shiny Ahuja is adequate without being special.

The other narratives were more predictable. Sharman Joshi and Kangana Raut - which is sort of a take off from "The Apartment" with Jack Lemmon and "For Love or Money" with Michael J Fox. So were Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali as the loving elder couple.

The track with Konkona Sen and Irfan is very entertaining. Irfan Khan is outstanding - an adjective one has started to use very often with him. Konkona adequate. However the circumstances make for some genuinely funny moments. Konkona as the 30 year old virgin dying to be with her idea man and Irfan - as about the most unlikely of men she could ever see herself with.

While I would not go so far as to herald this movie as either a path-breaking or life-altering Hindi movie (as some of the more dramatic leanings have suggested), I would say it is well worth a watch. It has a good music track - but could have done without the really hairy guy singing, as we changed from one narrative to the other.

With one movie, Anurag Basu rose quite high in my books as a director to look out for. Gangster was in many ways a complete movie for an Indian Movie audience and one of the best features of last year. Expectantly, Life in a... Metro was highly anticipated, especially with the movie repeating most of Basu cast & crew and a few more welcome actors. Basu sits right on top of the breed of Bhatt-nurtured directors who, if nothing else, have always made movies distinctly different from regular Bollywood fare.

Life in a... Metro is an amalgamation of six stories between nine characters from one suburb. These stories entwine and intersect at various points to portray personal lives for regular middle-class suburb dwellers. Passion, Sex, Loyalty, Romance, Lust, Stress and Love become the underlying themes woven into the fabric of the movie.

Basu is not in top form here, but this could be more due to constraints of mainstream Bollywood. Visibly a bigger and a more conformist producer like UTV (Ronnie Screwwala) is not as liberal as the Bhatts with Basu. Melodrama and formula somehow creep in and take over the final act of the movie in a complete departure of style from the rest of the movie. Apart from this major gripe, Basu deftly handles interspersing between stories and fleshing out his characters. Adultery becomes a major theme in most of the stories, but moral questions are not raised and neither ignored. Events are simply depicted "as is", letting the viewer judge for him/herself of their moral implications. That extra-marital affairs and sex-for-favors exist is taken as fact rather than implied, taboo'd or endorsed. Rather, the effect of it on individuals is depicted differently and quite aptly. Among the troupe of (mostly) wonderful actors, Kay Kay Menon thunders ahead portraying a selfish and chauvinistic husband and boss. Any scenes with him are the highlights of the movie proving again beyond doubt how wonderful an actor he is, regardless of the character he plays. Yet, for the genuinety of him you are left wanting to see more of him on screen than the limited screen time the director could afford. Complementing him in a parallel story is Irrfan, an equally gifted actor, playing a passionate and philosophical middle-age single guy looking for an ideal wife through matrimonial ads. Sprinkle around them a host of characters to support their stories, and you have a wonderful ensemble that is as true to the setup of the movie as any. Shiny Ahuja and Kanga Ranaut play easy parts but their talents are used only to a minimum. Dharmendra, Nafisa Ali, Sharman Joshi and Konkona Sen Sharma play regulars. Exception: Shilpa Shetty. Her character and performance are so out of this movie that you wonder if she walked into the wrong movie set with a different script. Shamelessly flaunting her star status and new-found celebrity, she proves yet again that being and "Actor" and a "Movie Star" are not mutually inclusive.

Basu's association with Pritam continues to produce some really good music. The movie's music is more of a soundtrack with a single musical theme in all the tracks. Basu also has the three-member band appear throughout the movie inbetween and during scenes. These band members are part of the crowd, or drifters singing the tracks that are sprinkled through the movie. A high-end concept for Indian Cinema, and one that works for me completely.

Although the climax reaches levels of extreme campyness, it is easy to forgive the director for the battle he fights with only a few others on his side against Bollywood conventionalism. Yet, after the powerful Gangster, Basu's latest is a step down. For his and our sake, I wish him back to the Bhatts.

My Rating --> 3.5 of 5

I heard about this Indian movie's release in Amsterdam, and later knew that it was made by Anurag Basu. I like this Director – who has made a decent mark with his earlier flicks - Murder and Gangster. Apart from that the cast included Shiny Ahuja, Irfan Khan, Kay Kay and Konkona Sen – all of my favorite list of actors and actress.

The movie is about several people's lives in Bombay who are linked with each other in some way or the other. It includes a young couple 1) Kay Kay and Shilpa Shetty passing through a terrible marriage crisis, 2) an old couple – Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali who after leading their separate lives meet each other after 30 years, 3) another man and woman – Irfan and Konkana who are seeking life partners, 4) ambitious corporate executives boy and girl – Sharman Joshi and Kangana Ranaut (Gangster fame) who wants to achieve materialistic success through whatever means they can, and finally 5) there is a lonely guy - Shiny Ahuja who meets Shilpa and they fall in love with each other.

The movies revolve around these peoples' lives - the key binding link among all of them is a rainbow of love, sex, romance and selfishness.

Anurag Basu has himself scripted and written the screenplay of the movie, and because of the tight script each character emerges as real. The whole movie is sprinkled with many moments of emotional range, laughter, smiles and cries. He has handled the characters very well and executed masterly.

All the actors have given brilliant performances, but in my preference of rating - Kay Kay, Irfan, Konkana and Shilpa rate the best. Sadly Shiny's role is not long enough to give him the scope for a great performance (the character did have the depth which the Director failed to exploit). A special mention needs to be made of Dharmendra, who pleases us after a long time – with his charm and acting. The most light and best funny moments are given to the pair of Irfan and Konkana. This story line had such a big potential of even making a full length feature film like Chasme Baddoor.

There are about six songs in the movie and all of them are sung by male singers. They are composed in special Pritam styles with Sufi touch. I loved the songs and their placements in the movie.

I like the light and shades, color and tones used by Anurag Basu in all his movies and in this movie too – he has used great camera angles to capture some beautiful shots of Bombay.

Overall a good movie experience.

(Stars 7.5 out of 10)

Anurag Basu directs Life in a Metro, a fun, dramatic feature which, like such movies as Dil Chahta Hai, attempts to portray the new India. Metro presents several individual stories of mostly young people, and all these stories are intertwined into one movie, which clearly aims to show the real side of the big city of Mumbai with all of its complexities, difficulties and troubled relationships. Each story is presented efficiently, and Basu successfully captures the spirit of the urban city with his range of colourful characters, depicting their modern lifestyle, their trials and tribulations, their dreams, hardships and dilemmas. This depiction is significantly aided by the realistic dialogues and situations, the dark dim atmosphere, the brilliant cinematography, and the narrative style, which is flavoured with wonderful music, great contemporary humour and some breathtakingly shot views of the big city.

The film is generally very well developed, though sadly the stories themselves are not particularly original. One story, for one, is an out-and-out copy of the classic gem The Apartment (1960). I was also quite shocked to see that the story of Konkona Sen Sharma, for instance, is given an element similar to the one she had in Page 3 (2005), with one scene being laughably copied from the latter. These, along with other flaws, reduce the movie's quality. Yet, it is still totally watchable and enjoyable. The script gives the film a very authentic feel which, along with some wonderful performances, makes the movie easy to relate to. The film's score is exceptional, and Pritam creates one of the best soundtracks of the year. Songs like "In Dino", "O Meri Jaan", "Rishtey" and "Alvida" are awesome and none of them is actually lip-synced by the actors, which contributes to the film's realism.

The acting is generally very good, and some of the performances are excellent. Shilpa Shetty gets a good role and delivers her second-best performance after Phir Milenge. Both films require her to act rather than look sexy and she is so good at it (at both, but I'm referring to the acting here). As Shikha, she is heartfelt and vulnerable and carries her scenes with grace, displaying her character's loneliness and desperation. Shiny Ahuja is convincing as the aspiring actor who falls for Shikha, and their relationship is beautifully portrayed. Kay Kay Menon is very good as Shikha's infidel husband Ranjeet. Kangana Ranaut is a little too loud at points but still effective as Ranjeet's lover Neha, and Sharman Joshi is fine as his ambitious employee who is also in love with Neha. Dharmendra and Nafisa Ali are good in their roles but sadly their story is the least developed and therefore quite forgettable.

The finest performances in the movie, along with Shilpa Shetty's one, are unsurprisingly those delivered by Irrfan Khan and Konkona Sen Sharma. Khan is amazingly likable and funny as Monty, and Sen Sharma is more than astonishing as Shikha's frustrated and heartbroken sister Shruti, whose personal problems really bring her down but she later finds the strength to move on. Her character is perhaps the most complex in the movie, as she has to play the supportive sister and friend, the wronged woman, and the woman who finally finds the one but is unsure. Her chemistry with Khan is wonderful with their scenes being some of the film's best and wittiest, and yes, the one in which she breaks down while trying to release her tensions by screaming at the top of her lungs on the roof of a high building with Khan's Monty, ultimately screaming her pain out, is really the film's best acted scene.

Life in a Metro is not without its flaws, and the fact that some parts of it lack originality really get on the nerves. That said, it is interesting and has many great moments of moving drama and funny comedy. The film will be mainly remembered in years to come for its rather different portrayal of the big city, its music, and some of its performances, all of which make it an altogether worthy picture.