Everybody Says I'm Fine!

About a barber who can hear the flow of thinking of the person to whom he is giving a haircut. He helps them(his customers) courteously but somehow directly by the information unknowingly given by themselves. He meets a girl and gets intimate with her, only to find that she has been abused by her successful father whom himself is also the barber's customer.

A fantastically dramatic directorial debut by Rahul Bose.What can I say? I loved the movie an its characters! quite extreme? of course, and quite rightly so .Bose's depiction of the wonderfully complicated lives of today's Mumbaiites who are brought together in the central theme of the movie.With a touch of Marquez's magical realism, the movie revolves around the need for self preservation through a pretence of normality.The characters want their chaotic lives buried away from the public eye as they continue to pretend that everything IS fine. Perversely enough, curiosity always gets the better of the public eye as they poke and prod and dig beneath the ground for treasures of guarded secrets. But do we really want to know the truth? For this flick the Indian audience need to fasten their seat-belts, for truth is bizarre, complex and utterly saddening. All in all a brave attempt and thoroughly enjoyable! An appeal to the Indian audience:

Hairdresser Xen had a traumatic childhood. He was in a recording booth when a short killed his parents at the mixing desk. He watched in silence as they died. Since then he has been able to read people's thoughts and hence see past their fronts. He generally is able to help those he sees but one girl, Nikita doesn't seem to be readable.

This film starts in a mix. The death scene and the way Xen reads minds are strange and feel ill at ease in the hairdressing saloon. However once you get the grip of the setup it becomes a lot better. The film seems to be saying – be real rather than front up, and for the most part it says it. However when Xen begins to `help' his customers he does it by encouraging their fronts rather than helping them to be real. With both of his first two customers he helps he builds on their fake lives and helps them to believe their lies. Is the film saying that it's better to have a front than deal with reality?

The title suggests that it is looking at the culture of people just saying `fine' when asked `how are you' rather than saying `actually I'm a mess'. But the film never says this and supports the fake opposite. The only interesting thing it does do well is to show that the quiet ones, the successful ones and the loud outgoing ones all have issues and problems – we all do. However this is lost in the final half an hour – when we have the fake lives supported and a strange plot about abuse that doesn't seem to have a point to make.

For the most part this is entertaining and interesting, it's only the last 30 minutes or so where it badly loses it's way. The gentle pace of the film makes it enjoyable even when the meaning is muddled. The cast are generally good – even if some have little to do or play Asian stereotypes. Rehuan Engineer (yes, really) is very good as Xen and likeable but Koel Purie is confused and misused as Nikita.

I must say it was passable, but I'd expected more – it set itself up nicely and avoided being daft but really it didn't make a good point and just ended up confusing itself and getting all twisted up.

I hate the inaneness of the run of the mill Bollywood formula flick in general, so I decided to give this film the benefit of the doubt, especially since the writer/director Bose has a few good oeuvres under his belt, albeit as an actor ("English August", a laugh out loud portrayal of a young civil servant's career in rural India, and "Mr and Mrs Iyer", a serious look at the communal divide between Hindus and Muslims woven into a warm and vibrant cross-country bus trip), this film being his foray behind the camera.

The plot revolves around Xen, a young hairdresser who has the bizarre ability to read people's minds while he is cutting their hair. This leads to a series of revelations most of them loosely connected with the story, although some scenes go off on tangents and you're left wondering why they are there.

The film fails on many levels. Real people do not act this way. Yes, the uppermost strata of Indian society are known for their mercedes-driving, club-going, gossipy and fake lifestyles, but several characters in the story are hopelessly overdone. Rahul Boses, Rage, character could have been less melodramatic and less wordy. So could Koel Purie's Nikita. This kind of acting fits nicely into a three-act play, playing these characters on film however is a completely different ball game altogether.

The script tries to be something it is not - intelligent. In a couple of scenes involving Rage and Nikita's interactions with Xen the hairdresser, the scriptwriter sounds like he wants to get as many words into one sentence as he can, leaving the actor gasping for breath after the delivery. Why the verbosity ? There is a benefit to keeping it simple - it won't not look fake!

And finally, does the writer really want us to empathize with a murderer ? And live happily ever after ?

Keep it real, Rahul, keep it real.

A really interesting way to present what could have been an incredibly cheesy plot. It had its non-sequitor moments, but it was otherwise very well done.

Recommended if you're looking for something other than the traditional Hollywood Summer blockbuster.