Jeans
Director: Shankar
Music: A.R. Rahman, Lyrics: Javed Akhtar
Year: 1998
Running Time: 252 minutes
Jeans is an enjoyable comedy without a lot
of weight or effective melodrama, but this is compensated by its energy,
ambitious musical set pieces and the deep-eyed beauty of Aishwarya Rai.
This made it more than palatable and the movie fled by fairly quickly if
innocuously. The comedy may be as old as cinema has had the technical ability
to place the same actor in the same frame and thus create the effect of
twins – but it still works here to a some degree. The love story and the
attempted melodrama fall flat and don’t bring on the hoped for emotional
response - much of this is due to the lack of chemistry between Aish and
her leading man, Prashant. No sparks fly between these two, as Prashant
just feels too genial and proper to generate the required heat.
Aish is delightful throughout though and shows
a hesitant ability to do comedy. She never looks quite comfortable in the
comic aspects, but looks to be having some fun playing two characters and
this sense of fun is passed on to the audience. She is at her best in the
dance numbers and moves beguilingly and throws off more style than a year’s
subscription to Vogue. For those who like wallowing in beauty and charm,
but don’t want to set their brain to the on position this is a minor treat.
Aish goes through countless costume changes, and the film never forgets
to go in for the killer close-up of her napalm like eyes.
Twins abound in this film – some real and some
not so real – and the filmmakers do a very technically apt job of making
it look very good. Aish and her grandmother (Lakshmi) fly to Los Angeles
from Madras for an operation for the old woman and they bump into a pair
of twins – Vishu and Ramu – played by Prashant. The twins and their widower
father, Nasser, help them out and when complications in the surgery ensue
they pitch in to save the woman’s life. Vishu and Aish fall in love. Or
was that Ramu and Aish? I don’t know – but love blooms until the father
puts the kibosh on it. Not for the typical Indian movie reasons of class
though – but because he insists that his sons marry a pair of twins. Funny
he never bothered to mention this little rule to his grown up sons. They
might have saved some time and anguish by placing ads in the classifieds
– “Twins looking for other twins who enjoy wearing the same clothes”. Not
only are Vishu and Ramu twins – but they also insist on looking exactly
alike in every detail – much to Aish’s embarrassment on occasion. I will
not go into details – but I knew some identical twins in college who used
this to some rather tawdry advantages with women – but I am sure good boys
like Vishu and Ramu would never do the same.
All looks as lost as a headless man in search
of his missing appendage, but the Grandmother suddenly announces that in
fact Aish has a twin, but she was sent away at birth because of a fortunetellers
dire prediction. The boys jump for joy at the thought of two Aish’s in
the household – one for each – and I was pleased at the thought of two
Aish’s in the movie – but of course there is no twin – but the grandmother
sets in motion a plan to have Aish pretend to be her own sister. How this
was suppose to work for long is not clear – though through technology we
do get the two Aishes dancing together. Needless to say – Ramu or was it
Visnu - begins falling in love with the phony sister and heartbreak looms
on the horizon. The performance from the father – who also plays twins
– is terrific. He really gives both distinct personalities as opposed to
Prashant – whose twins are interchangeable like cans of coke. And speaking
of coke - I get the feeling that Aish must be their spokesperson as both
this film and Taal had cans or bottles of coke often in prominent display.
The film has six songs, but they are a minor letdown
considering that they are coming from A.R. Rahman. One almost senses that
the film didn’t have the needed passion to inspire him. In particular the
first two numbers seem almost throwaways and it isn’t until the third song
that it picks up. This is an ambitious number as the two lovers flit from
New York to Las Vegas to the tip of the Grand Canyon and Aish goes totally
glam. In the fourth number Rahman seems to find his rhythm with a traditional
Indian number. The final interlude is the best – a catchy slow number and
the locations begin at the Great Wall and then hopscotch from Paris to
the Pyramids to Rome and Aish dresses in spectacular fashions along the
way. Most of the numbers tend to be more visually interesting than musically.
My rating for this film: 7.5
Song
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Song
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Song
3
Song
4
