LUCK BY CHANCE : A Film lost in Caricature, Almost.
“Luck is a matter of preparation meeting opportunity.”- Oprah Winfrey
Opportunity, something almost a million….err no make it a zillion people comes looking for! Slogging it out in small dingy rooms, sitting on the floor listening to self proclaimed acting gurus giving lectures on subtleness and what not, saving up cash for ages for that one coveted portfolio, the CHANCES of which landing on the desk of a producer is as thin as their hopes of survival in this city. AH the tragedy of life, amusing aint it? Entertaining too and probably the foil for one of the best underdog stories anyone can think of, the story of strugglers!
Luck By Chance the story of two such, Konkona Sen Sharma and Farhan Akhtar deals with their struggle, Fame and coming in terms with life. Very much like his previous films, one of the reoccurring themes remain the inability of the protagonist to accept reality and move on in life, there is a zeal to fight back the odds, stakes stacked against him higher than he can even dream of reaching…..
It worked previously and LBC too almost makes it happen, except it falters too many times on its way!
The opening sequence, followed by a lovely set of montages accompanying the credits, beautifully sets up the feel of the film. Konkona an aspiring actress, sitting inside a producers office, being lured into false hopes and dreams by a man who only wants to take advantage of her….this can be anyone’s story. For most part LBC remains relatable to anyone who has ever struggled in the industry, it mocks itself and dares to make fun. Unlike the recently released Fashion (another film trying to give us a look at a slice from an industry), LCB doesn’t lecture nor does it take itself too seriously…for most part subtlety remains its key. Both Farhan and Konkona beautifully underplay their roles, supported by almost the who’s who of the industry including a brilliant Rishi Kapoor!
A brilliant first half, strewn with inside jokes, songs and a dozen guest appearances leave you elated, but when expectations reach a maximum, the director lets go of the string in the second half, the water tight script drags…..from being a look at the industry it becomes a caricature of it, characters no longer throb with a heart of their own rather than just trying to mimic others. And within a while a plot which seemed gripping, entertaining and thoughtful becomes contrived, slow and predictable.
It moves in too many directions, which it should have but the problem remains in the amount of time the maker takes to clean up after it….aah the golden invention called scissors, when are we going to learn appreciating it? all the jokes, parodies and drama seems repetitive from the first half, even the brilliant sequences of the mother/daughter flirting with Farhan seems unnecessary! The dalde ka dabba like heroine, the strict mother, the jackass director all seemed rather one dimensional unlike the leads.
In the beginning of the film Saurabh Shukla tells Akhtar, “you are too subtle; so much subtlety doesn’t work in Hindi films. Well it seemed to me half way through the film, Zoya Akhtar starts believing in that…..though she probably realizes it before the last 20 odd minutes when the film again picks up where it had left an hour back and beautifully closes in to a bitter sweet ending!
LBC is not great cinema but it certainly aint bad, my qualms will always remain as to what it could have been and what it ended up with….., but all that apart it surely is worth the price of popcorn and morning sleep even if only for the first 60 minutes of brilliance.
What I loved about the film was that it prefers SPEAKING over SHOUTING, if only…… it spoke a little less
Well that’s about it for my rant, now shoot me while I go and ponder on the metaphysical implications of my empty refrigerator!
Tags: Dimple Kapadia, excel, Farhan Akhtar, Hrithik Roshan, konkona sen sharma, Luck By Chance, Rishi Kapoor, Shankar Ehsaan Loy, 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
Hmm.. an interesting counter view to all the praise the film is receiving.. Not seen the film though so I’ll reserve my comments for later.
the movie was worth a watch….it breaks the stereotypes to some extent…Watchout for Anurag K, he’ll take u by surprise
had i written a review,it would have got along on somewhat similar lines…
‘Luck By Chance’ is definitely worth a watch!
The script is king here,for a change.
Zoya Akhtar has done a fabulous job here.
Performances are fantastic by the principle characters, but i’m not too convinced by the other ’stars’!
They could’ve been a bit more real.
But, it’s a very good effort.
Loved Koko and Farhan, but Rishi Kapoor was AMAZING!
Such an underrated actor!
How can i not mention Juhi?!
She looks so bloody gorgeous!
Is she getting younger or what?!
My sentiments exactly. Good film- especially the montage of well developed characters. But this is not great cinema as Khalid Mohammad and Anurag Kashyap are calling it. It is “you scratch my back…” kind of mentality. In fact in my humble opinion KM is the most dishonest, petty, and narcissistic critic ever. Anyway, I hope Luck by Chance does well. It will herald a new age in bollywood if it succeeds and It is way better than the crap dished out by CCtoC and Singh is King. And to think Nikhil Advani has another deal with Warner Bros! The man should be run out of town.
I agree RR that it certainly is not great cinema. But not every cinema is supposed to be great nor does all cinema aspire to be great.
“my qualms will always remain as to what it could have been and what it ended up with”.. im intrigued what could it have been RR??
RR
Can you enlighten us as how would would have made the second half better?
What chances would you recommend?
Have you seen the life that this film potrayes?
Mainak RR ne kabhi Bombay ke ghasse nahin khaye hain toh usko idea nahin hain how fucking incredible and perfect this film is.
Nahi Nahi Miank n Mitch..
RR has his reasons!! Ek Dum fundu reasons hai!! Lets wait for his words!!
@DPAC, MAINAK AND MITCH
Having three smokin barrels pointing at you is rather intimidating i’ll admit that
Well let me start with the good stuff,
i never criticized the film, my only problems were that it could have been so much more….except for Farhan,Koko and rishi kapoor all the characters seemed mere caricatures of real life people, they didn’t have a heart of their own, the writer was too busy parodying real people to care creating characters. didn’t care for any of them. ISHA SHARVANI specially over did the “dumb star kid”, and Juhi Chawla was uncharacteristically irritating !
The farhan/isha angle was stretched too long,
the swimming pool sequence though hilarious, could have been done away with. Why did she need the whole song and dance with farhan and isha?
all these added atleast 20 odd minutes.
would have loved if in the SRK sequence, they had cut the scene where farhan tells his friends that he will meet them later and SRK looks at farhan, why did they have to provide all that talk about how you should remember people who was with you before success blah blah blah…btw if am not mistaken the lines were exactly what srk said in his docu, THE INNER WORLD OF SRK!
When did i say the film was bad, it was very very good. just not brilliant which it could have been..
and yes i’ve never lived the life shown in the film, nor do i have anyone for reference who has lived it, and yes i guess from whatever i’ve heard it is pretty authentic, no doubts about it…
Achcha!!!!
brave bano puttar braave 3 barrels or not..
my question was not tht…
i asked wht do u want changed..
u mean u want to cut 20 odd mins??
there was this scene with Zaffar and some street children.. no bearing s wht so ever to the story script… woh bhi nikaaal doon?
Although I really liked alot of it, a couple of things bothered me.
Some, in relation to the film.
Others? In relation to my response.
Its a very good effort.
Applaud worthy, actualy.
Yet, the fact that its made by famous celebrity kids, kinda takes away the appeal too.
And the ’stars’ were hopeless!
Hrithik, Viveck, John etc, were just bad.
Srk was top though.
Ditto Aamir.
Koko, Farhan and RISHI KAPOOR were grand!
Dimple pretty good too.
I’d watch again for them…
U could tell that Hrithik, Manish Malhotra, Rani, Vivek etc, were just ‘play acting’!
Very off-putting.
Esp in a ‘real’ film.
Srk was Srk, but had a certain believability bout him.
Rishi was AMAZING!
His son can learn a thing or two from him!
Oh, Anurag Kashyap was pretty good too!
dis is xactly y rick is my best friend
Not interested any more in this film.
i dunno wat rick wants 2 change……here’s my POV
http://passionforcinema.com/arreyisne-toh-biriyani-jalaa-di/
RR
What you think are caricatures are infact exactly the kind of people you will find in the industry.I found that scene with SRK especially poignant. I think your issue with the film is that you enjoy plot driven films more than character driven films. Also I think it’s clear that the film will have much more emotional resonance with people who actually work in the film industry rather than the aam junta. Dude that scene shot in Gaiety where the people are dancing in the aisles brought back so many memories.
Mitch,
as a person who has been there and done it, unlike me. i’ll take your word for it with my eyes closed any given day. To me it seemed a bit fake, but yeah maybe people like ISHA SHARVANI’S character does exist.
Referring to another comment, yes i clamor for good cinema, and yes this definitely is that. but its not flawless is it?
Maybe in years when i do actually slog it out under the sun, i’ll have a different view of the film. till then i’ll hold my thought.
Read most of the reviews and then saw the film. Your review of the film is the best. LBC is gud but didn’t live up to the hype it received.
Rightly said bro, it was not good and it was not bad.
It was real and yet predictable, but its worth a watch and not a must watch.
Eventhough I agree mostly with RR i don’t think Isha shervani overdid dumb star kid act.In fact I feel it was a well develeped character and she has done it well.She was convincing in that interview she gives.
When i thought that director will play to the gallery with usual bollywoodish ending,she surprised me with a great ending