Starring: Pavail Gulati,Shreya Choudhary; Rating: *
Apart from a very engaging actor Pavail Gulati, Imtiaz Ali’s new short-film “The Other Way” has only one takeway at the end: the realization that the director needs to take a long break from filmmaking.
As a movie maker he seems to have hit a massive roadblock, what with his last two feature films “Tamasha” and “When Harry Met Sejal” turning out to be major disappointments from a director who once gave us the sparkling “Socha Na Tha”, the life-changing “Jab We Met” and the underrated “Love Aaj Kal”.
Imtiaz wants us to believe that love aaj kal, is like that only. Young people afraid of commitment to long-lasting relationships. This theme which runs, nay limps, through all his recent films reaches a kind of absurdist acme in “The Other Way”.
“The Other Way” is not only short, it’s also stupid to the point of being annoying. The two main characters are a young footloose photographer (played effectively by Pavail Gulati) and a could-be runaway bride (Shreya Chudhary). The girl who gallivants with a stranger moments from the mandap, is so daft, you want to shake her by her shoulders to remind her that love, marriage, commitment are no ideas to be played around with.
Not that it is her fault. Imtiaz Ali, whose drawling voiceover we hear throughout the 10-min film (why does the director need to explain such a short film!) pulls the two characters through an embarrassing adventure that can best be described as Jab Geet Met Sejal. The female protagonist is as headstrong as Kareena Kapoor in “Jab We Met” but as misguided in her zest for life as Anushka Sharma in Jab Harry Mery Sejal. It’s obvious her parents didn’t teach her that life is not only about doing what an individual wants, it’s also about being considerate towards the feelings of those who matter in your life.
Utterly self-centred she takes off on a wild safari of self-discovery on the eve of her marriage. The director seems to enjoy creating protagonists who have no sense of social responsibility. To add to the feeling of a disheartening pandemonium of priorities the story is narrated to us backwards. That is to say, the film starts at the end and ends at the beginning.
I say, whatever you do with such pretentious garbage, it will only end at one place. In the pits. The title is actually a warning for Imtiaz Ali’s admirers. Look The Other Way.
By Subhash K Jha
