Dil HaiTumhaara
Director: Kundan Shah
Music: Nadeem-Shravan; Lyrics: Sameer
Year: 2002
Running Time: 2 hours 55 minutes
This oddly formed film makes you think of having
stumbled across an extremely ugly baby that someone has left by the roadside
and you have every intention of doing the same, but it gurgles at that
moment, looking rather homely but cute and you take it home and have it
for dinner. No, I mean take it home and eventually become quite fond of
its quirks and idiosyncrasies. While watching the film in the theater,
both my friend and I turned to one another at the “dramatic” intermission
pause and each exclaimed, “this is a terrible film, but I’m totally loving
it”. By most measures, Dil Hai Tumhaara is a real clunker but as it gurgles
along I found myself thoroughly enjoying the silly humor – some intended,
some not -, an absurd and not very convincing plot, some dusty story devices
that are as old as film itself (a classic eavesdropping scene), lots of
rather fun overdone performances and loads of music. It makes for a surprisingly
engaging three hours, but you have to watch it with the appropriate goofy
attitude.
It is also an unusual Bollywood film in that it
is very female centric with the male actors around for either comic relief
or to simply look good – and it is the three female characters and their
relationships with one another that drive the story forward. Unfortunately,
female oriented films generally don’t fare well in India where the Hero
is king of the box office. The 2001 Lajja that focused on four females
to often wonderful effect died a quick death at the box office, so it is
a nice sign to see a film like this being produced. Of course in a period
in which nearly 90% of the films being made in Bombay have been losing
money – producers are more willing to look for something different – but
at the same time it is hard to imagine this lovable little film will bring
in the crowds.
Rekha thinks she is in a perfect marriage – o.k.,
so hubby doesn’t have time to go out with their small daughter Nimmi on
her birthday – but she happily takes Nimmi to the local fair for some rides.
Soon though the daughter is screeching “daddy, daddy” and sure enough there
is good old dad on another ride with a woman and another small girl. Oops.
It seems dad had been busy on the side with his true love. Well he soon
gets his as on the way home his car goes off the road and over the side
and dives headfirst 20 feet below where it explodes and turns into a ball
of fire. Yet he still manages a traditional Bollywood death scene! With
Rekha at his side, he begs her to take care of his other daughter, Shalu,
who miraculously survived without a scratch. Rekha ponders and we already
get a quick flashback of everything that took place in the first five minutes
of the film for those who arrived late. Dad utters his last plea and promptly
dies on cue and Rekha grudgingly takes in the girl.
Doing her best Joan Crawford, Rekha showers Nimmi
with love while giving Shalu the cold heartless shoulder over the next
number of years – and the extremely homely child actress who plays Shalu
is soon making menacing faces and ripping up pillows. So much so that you
fully expect the bad seed or at least someone with mild homicidal tendencies
– but instead she grows up into the absolutely adorable Preity Zinta who
shows all that inner anger by sliding down the banister to piss old mom
off or breaking the occasional vase – pretty scary stuff indeed. In all
these years Preity has yet to get a mom’s hug – and she has the pictures
to prove it - but older sis – now the lovely Mahima Chaudhary – has
never noticed this disparity of affection from mom. But these are not the
most observant of children as the six year old Nimmi never noticed that
all of a sudden she had a brand new sister or the younger Shalu didn’t
seem to notice that mom and dad were suddenly missing – so they think they
are real sisters and unaware of Shalu’s sordid past. Not for long of course!
Mind you we are only about fifteen minutes into
the film at this point so I will speed up this review considerably! Now
the film starts getting wacky. Preity applies for a job at Khanna Industries
– a totally corrupt company being managed by two brothers in frightful
wigs that are often on backwards and who seem to be in a perpetual state
of sweating – clearly bad guys – but she hoodwinks them into a job by telling
them that the distant owner of the company – Mr. Khanna (Alok Nath) – is
her uncle. Meanwhile the son of Mr. Khanna, Arjun Rampal, has come back
from business school abroad and along with his Tweedle Dum and Tweedle
Dee right hand men – CEO I and CEO II (you know this by their badges) –
is full of theories on productivity, non-productivity productivity and
productive productivity. He wants to close the unprofitable plant, but
his kindly father asks him to first visit it and make sure something can’t
be done to fix it. Arjun disguises himself as the chauffeur’s son with
slicked back nerdy hair, glasses and a look of total stupidity and gets
a job as a clerk and driver in the company working for Preity. Even though
she sends him on an amusing wild goose chase up a mountain and across a
lake in a boatful of sheep, he soon is of course falling in love with her
dimples. Nimmi though is totally besotted with him and when they all discover
who he really is mom is intent on marrying him off to Nimmi and not Preity.
Throw into this pot a ventriloquist, Jimmy Shergill,
with a giant puppet who is in love with Preity, but unable to tell her.
Not that I am an expert on courtship, but a few love tips to future ventriloquists
out there. Leave your dummy at home. Don’t have intimate conversations
with your dummy in front of your hoped for love one. Don’t have your dummy
appear smarter than you are. Believe me, you are going to freak out the
girl who will likely think that you are looking for a kinky ménage
a trois with the dummy and her. The fact that you live in a little grass
hut in an enchanted forest probably won’t help either – or the fact that
your dummy seems to move on its own at times. Is it possessed or what?
Thankfully he disappears from the film when some Japanese talent searchers
spot him and take him on a tour of Japan where Hindi ventriloquists must
be in high demand.
It all gets very complicated towards the end of
course with Preity wanting the love of her mom and sister, Arjun wanting
her, Nimmi wanting him, Alok wanting some good food, Jimmy wanting Preity,
the dummy wanting Jimmy, the mother wanting a coat hanger and revenge on
her dead husband, the bewigged sweaty guys wanting more screen time and
the Japanese wanting their investment back. The performances are far from
nuanced, but highly energetic – especially Preity who is non-stop movement
and charm – and entertaining. The music is not inspired, but certainly
listenable with a few catchy tunes and the picturization is well done with
some clever moments. In an odd way, it’s all quite bad and quite wonderful
at the same time.
My rating for this film: 6.0
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