A spoonful of sugar

I'll probably never watch any of those American dramas about September 11th, but now I don't need to, having watched Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota. Mainly because I saw a trailer, and it looked like Irfan got a sexy scene. And yes, he did; although it wasn't up to the Maqbool level (people just aren't exploiting his hotness enough for my taste), I was happy anyway. He also did some actual kissing. Woo!

This is one of the movies in which he's billed simply as "Irffan." I was saying last night, he seems to be sticking with this 2-F thing, so I suppose I should follow suit. It's just that sometimes it's one way and sometimes the other: I have the accuracy hang-up that I feel I should spell it however the film does, so I think I resist the inconsistency. I do, however, love it when he's billed by the single word, the one, the only, Irffan!

Konkona Sen Sharma also starred (when is she going to be discovered by Hollywood? She is, after all, Irfan's female counterpart. See, there I go again with the instinctive single-F). Lots of other good actors were in it (ensemble piece), and I was pleasantly surprised with Ayesha Takia. She seeemed so very lightweight in Sunday, young and cute, and -- that's it. Here she played young and cute and privileged, the rich girl of her circle, hanging out with her friends and having fun, but then she got to eventually show more depth, and it really worked. It probably helped that she didn't have to do any cute silly voices.

The movie follows four storylines involving people who are traveling to America. There's a medical student who's unsure whether leaving India is the right thing to do; a girl whose mother will sacrifice anything to get her the hell out; Irfan is a heart-broken stockbroker who has to flee the country after a business acquaintance gets murdered in his vicinity; and Konkona is a newlywed, waiting for her visa so she can join her husband in L.A., and being driven mad by her in-laws. (I liked the fact that the unstable mother was an American, and clearly relishing the thought of getting a traditional Indian daughter-in-law to push around).

As the stories went along, I kind of forgot about what was going to happen, and the way they converged, with different fates for different characters, was quite effective. Especially (SPOILER! O Spoiler!) for the person who misses the plane. The way it's set up, it seems clear that this is the person, in their situation, who would most feel that missing the plane is the worst possible thing that could happen. That's juxtaposed with the hoops other characters had to jump through to get their visas, to get the money, all they went through to get on this plane that's never going to land.

I know, usually I like my Bollywood fluffy, with the maximum in glitter. I prefer to leave my seriousness for the news. But I'm glad I watched this, so I decided to bump that Gandhi assassination movie to the top of my queue. Hey, it has Shahrukh in it! It's gotta be worth watching.