Film: “Calendar Girls”; Director: Madhur Bhandarkar; Cast: Akanksha Puri, Avani Modi, Kyra Dutt, Ruhi Singh, Satarupa Pyne.
While Madhur Bhandarkar tries washing away the grease paint off the glamour industry, he desperately seems to be recycling the content from his previous films, thus offering nothing new to his audience.
If you have seen “Fashion” and “Heroine”, then “Calendar Girls” is no different in terms of setting, emotions and drama. Except, here you have an equally glossy film with ample bronze and golden-hued skin show.
Famed for being brutally honest about his depiction about his subjects, this film offers an insight into the lives of the bikini-clad calendar girls, a phenomenon created by industrialist Vijay Mallya’s popular Kingfisher calendars.
After their selection, the never-ending prologue delves into the excitement and dreams of the five girls – Nandita Menon from Hyderabad, Paroma Ghosh from Kolkata, Sharon Pinto from Goa, Nazneen Malik from Pakistan and Mayuri Chauhan from Rohtak.
Soon, after a quick photo session in the Maldives, The Calendar 2014 is launched with much fanfare. The girls become overnight celebrities, who are now predictably prone to be cursed by the demons of fame.
The script intricately weaves each one’s story passionately, revealing a graph that starts from an evocative high and only plunges down the emotional scale, predictably so.
The five new girls making their debut are competitive and confident. They slip into the character skin with grace and ease, occasionally faltering with their diction and dialogue delivery.
They are ably supported by a plethora of able-bodied hunks who are cast opposite each of the girls and a few in just one-scene roles.
Notable among them are the characters Pinakee Chatterjee, Harsh Narang, Imzamaam, Akhil Sood and Shashank.
Suhel Seth, an otherwise brilliant actor whose character, Rishab Kukreja is modelled on the lines of Vijay Mallya along with Kiran Kumar as the senior industrialist Mr. Narang, are wasted on screen.
Rohit Roy as photographer Timmy Sen along with Mita Vashist as the sleazy fixer Ananya Raichand, Suchitra Pillai as the socialite Naina and Madhur Bhandarkar as himself, are perfunctory.
One wonders, if this is actually a warning message for those who intend to watch this film.
-IANS