Laga Chunari Me Daag: Surf Excel Hai Naa

"Agar kuchh accha karne me daag lag jate hain, to daag acche hain." (borrowed from "Daag Acche Hain" campaign of Surf Excel) should have been the concluding line of the movie. That was the only conclusion after watching 3 hour long ad campaign, unfortunately the product YRF chose to endorse was Lux , not Surf. I am not sure how many women across India will buy Lux, if they come to know that they will look like Konkana SenSharma (no offense, she is a great actor, but that's not the face someone would choose to model for a beauty soap) after using this beauty soap.

Oops, I dragged a bit from the objective. Well, the movie is about two young girls Vibhavari (Rani) and Shubhavari (Konkana), living in Banaras with their parents (Anupam Kher and Jaya Bacchan).The movie starts with introducing the two sisters with a song "hum to aise hain bhaiya". What am I doing? Doesn't everyone already know the story. Will summarize for the ignorant ones. To financially support her family the elder sister becomes a high profile escort serving to 5 star clients staying in 5 star hotels in Mumbai. (is entering this highly competitive business that easy?)

I learned one thing about female oriented films, i.e. all the male characters in such movies are either losers (Anupam Kher), haramkhor (Sushant Singh, Tinu Anand, Harsh Chhaya) or not important (Abhishek Bacchan, Kunal Kapoor). Konkana has acted beautifully in a role, which is suffering from a decease called weak characterization. Her character is so dumb that she is never aware of the financial condition of the family, even though she was living in the same home. (yaar kisi hostel me hi rakh dete use) This in not the only thing, there are so many weak spots in the movie and the biggest one is the story. The story has been used so many times in our movies and in so many forms that everyone knew about the next scene before it even played on screen. Couldn't understand the blackmailing angle. Why have irrelevant scenes in the movie just to enhance the plight of the lead character? (ek ladki ke galat decision ko justify karne ke liye kitne logon ko bura dikhaoge) Some props are so out of place that you start wondering, what was in director's mind when he decided to use such props. Like the telephone booth in front of CST station, the phone in that telephone booth (it was not one rupee coin one, may be Indian Telcos have decided to provide free calling facility for girls under distress), the old phone with round dialer in a Mumbai flat (who uses those, unless someone is interested in antiques).

This time Sarkar fails big time in telling the story or is that YashRaj effect. You can see the parineeta director only when the story stays in Banaras, once it reaches Mumbai, the director is lost. Except for the first and last songs all other are forced into the story. In the end, don't watch this film and apni chunari me daag lagne se bacha lo (mere kapdon me to itne daag lag gaye hain ki ab log ise naya fashion samajh ke maf kar dete hain).