Luck By Chance: Will it make Farhan the new-age cinema’s star actor?
Hi Anurag (Kashyap). You are a scream in Luck By Chance, as the ‘institute’ pass out who is asked to write Bollywood scripts out of Hollywood DVDs. But no, I cannot agree with your assessment elsewhere on passionforcinema that Zoya Akhtar’s is probably the best-ever debut venture you have ever seen, even better than her brother Farhan Akhtar’s Dil Chahta Hai. Why, even your own debut, Paanch ranks much higher in my list of great debuts.
Yes, LBC is a confident – and interesting – debut with some real good performances by Farhan, Konkona Sen Sharma, Rishi Kapoor, Dimple Kapadia and Hrithik Roshan. Kudos to them for giving in completely to the character sketches. But it could have been a much better watch with some tighter editing. It is slightly longer for comfort, because of which the narrative threatens to meander here and there, and it does once in while. Particularly irksome has been the ‘star parade’, thanks obviously to the makers’ accessibility in the industry, but more often than not looking forced.
But then, keep LBC against Om Shanti Om, and you immediately would see how Zoya has not sugarcoated the politicking, the conspiracies, the competition in the industry – though she has done it in a dignified way that makes everyone look like a victim of the circumstances – and of luck, or the lack of it.
What this film proves is that Farhan Akhtar is becoming actor, and just like in Rock On!, here too he connects with the viewer through his no-mannerisms acting. Saurabh Shukla’s acting school teacher character tells him very early in the film, “Tu Bahut underplay karta hai yaar.” That exactly is proving to be Farhan’s skill quotient. If he continues like this, he will prove to be tough competition for Abhay Deol for the emerging slot of intelligent Hindi cinema’s new age superstar. Konkona, as the runaway girl from Kanpur with dreams of making it big in Bollywood, gives her one those regular performances – effortlessly immersing herself in Sona Mishra’s character.
LBC is no doubt an interesting debut, but it could have been a much more hardhitting look at the ruthlessness in the film industry. Being from within the industry, the director possibly did not want to go the whole hog, or maybe she wanted to give the whole perspective – on why things happen like they happen in Bollywood. I would like to believe it is the latter. Films like these, despite their little drawbacks, should and must do well – unfortunately, it is the mindless that has been scoring in recent times in the Box Office – for the Hindi film industry to become a world where intelligence is at the centrestage and no-brainers are a sideshow, not the other way round as it is now.
Tags: Dimple Kapadia, Farhan Akhtar, Luck By Chance, Rishi Kapoor, Zoya Akhtar
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Farhan certainly has it in him to be a star-actor material, but I think he has a long way to go before we confer that title on him. But the man sure is promising! And most importantly, watching him on screen be his normal self is a very very welcome change
I don’t think Farhan wants to be a star.
He seems like a creative person who likes to try every aspect of filmmaking because he can.
Wish more star kids were like Akhtars.
Well LBC being a better Debut than DCH. Thats another subject deserving of a post.
Maybe a week from now.