Not just – Luck By Chance
While the rest of the world and its kuzin have been busy going gaga about the emosanal atyachar inflikted by masakkali matakkali, one film that has held me dumbstruck is the debut venture of Zoya Akhtar – Luck By Chance (LBC). A venture that looks so real, so honest & so heart wrenching. A stark kontrast to OSO… what Farah Khan did with her spoof, this one will undo the damage (IMO) & reklaim the glorious aura of being in films, komik relief be damned.
Bagiya bagiya baalak bhaage, titli phir phi haath na laage…
This one line from the soul-stirring song of the film enkapsulates the struggle of ambitious people akross the board, korporate or otherwise. That one elusive dream, that one ambition which is bekoming so diffikult to achieve, that it has taken over the entire existence and side-lined the rest, in the makro skeme of things. Sapno se bhare naina, na neend hai na chaina… masha allah… my humble filmi head bows in utter reverence for Javed saab.
By chance, I happened to see an interview where Zoya Akhtar was talking about her debut film & I was hooked & how! It was so thought provoking that after watching it, I switched off the TV & spent a few hours alone, taking stock of WTF was I doing with my life. It did me some good & I ended up writing a few songs & scenes, for my future projekts, that would happen by chance or wudever!
As luck would have it, a few days ago, I happened to talk to an erstwhile filmi struggler friend of mine, who is now a famous (almost) RJ. The kasual chat somehow veered to LBC and my friend got emosanal. Having just seen a few rushes here & there, he felt that this film will nail it… the pathos of a person, who is trying to make a mark in Hindi Film Industry. The morbid audition room shown in the sapno se bhare… song touched him the most.
“This is the true underbelly of Bollywood” he said. He added that “what Satya & Company were to underworld, LBC is to Hindi Film Industry.” Now that is some serious komplement koming from a guy who spent most of his youth karrying his portfolio, from one production house to the other, taking krap, feeling insekure, being mocked, being humiliated & being walked all over, again & again.
Just like the name of the movie Luck By Chance, it’s making seems to have been like that. Most of the things that were planned didn’t happen & then By Chance, something else did. Initially Tabu was supposed to play the female lead in film & Farhan was just doing a kameo, playing himself & look at it today… As Saurabh Shukla’s karekter in one of the promo says – “Yahan talent ke saath sath, luck bhi bahut bada faktor hota hai.”
For me the highlights of this film will be the kemistry between Farhan & Konkona, Rishi Kapoor & Juhi Chawla, Hrithik as Zafar Khan & all the other kameos, most importantly SRK’s. The best thing about Zoya Akhtar making this film is that she has seen it all first hand. I mean the strugglers, the finer nuances, the Jai Mata Di, the insha allah et al. Growing up in the Akhtar household gives her the ‘By Default’ kredibility to do so.
This film, IMO, has a huge huge audience, not just bekause of the kameos, but bekause of the plain simple fakt that somewhere deep down inside, everyone wants to somehow be in films. People on both sides of the fence will enjoy it. But those who are aspiring to get in will definitely get many myths (thankfully) shaken off their psykes.
So till Jan 30 ‘09 when the movie releases, mere sapno se bhare naina, na neend hai na chaina… goosebump stuff this.
Tags: Bollywood, Excel Entertainment, Farhan Akhtar, Film Industry, Hrithik Roshan, Javed Akhtar, Luck By Chance, Shankar Mahadevan, SRK, 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
Guess what – For the first time..SRK n Aamir in the same movie….its purely “Luck by Chance”
@ Ashu: its a bigger n better casting coup than OSO!
This is the movie i’m waiting for. I have not been excited about Bollywood films with such starcast ever in my life. But I hope this film is half as good as the promos are.
@ Mainak: it certainly seems to b a kolossal winner.
The movie seems good ..n the songs are getting good responses ..The songs have already been given 5stars from itunes…great going!
Am also waiting desperately … but the last time so much excitement was generated over a trailer / previews was the trailer of CC2C with many naming it the “ideal” crossover film. so i am holding on to my horses … would love to love the film … has konkona in the lead after all !!!
I was waiting for this movie the name seems very attractive
What A Time Yaar!!! 4get all the crap, we have got our hands full.
OLLO, DEV.D, LBC and Delhi 6 within a month of each other… Good time to be a movie fanatic.
I really do hope that Zoya gets to catch the pulse of the Industry in the truest sense, and please dont even compare this to OSO.
CC2C,Ghajini and other Masala Movies be dammed, i am having my hands full!!!
@ Guys: Glad ppl have noticed this genuine n sincere attempt amidst the hype n hoopla of other trashy mass entertainers… more power to such storytellers. Cheerz…
“A venture that looks so real, so honest & so heart wrenching.”
The Director: Zoya Akhtar (Sister of Farhan Akhtar)
The Producer: Farhan Akhtar (Son of Jaaved Akhtar)
Lead Actor: Farhan Akhtar (Son of Honey Irani…it takes two to clap and reproduce, you see)
Lead Actress: Konkana Sen (daughter of Aparna Sen)
Guest Appearance 1: Hrithik Roshan (son of Rakesh Roshan)
Guest Appearance 2: Rishi Kapoor (son of Raj Kapoor)
Guest Appearance 3: Sanjay Kapoor (brother of Boney & Anil Kapoor)
Now try saying this line again – A venture (about Bollywood struggle) that looks so REAL, so HONEST & so HEART WRENCHING.
Who are we kidding, brother?
@ Duh!: had u seen the interview, which made me share these thoughts, u just might have agreed. Also I have seen the strugglers (4 room mates for 2 years) first-hand & seen them go through the unkind grind. May be thats the reason I (perhaps) sound biased. Well, anyways, the post is my personal opinion & if you disagree, who am I to say anything… thanks for reading & sharing your thoughts.
BTW the Akhtar clan has serious kreative DNA in them, everyone in the household has a kreative gene in them.
when we thought there would be no one like Javed Akhtar ,Farhan came and DCH happened and the rest is history, and now Zoya.
@ vineet: how true. ek se badhkar ek.
Farhan Akhtar is the best nd most creative when u talk about star kids…
@ RKS: Though I share your sentiment, but kreativity is subjektive yaar. One man’s Rock On!! might be other’s Yuvvraaj!
Farhan Akhtar and his production house excel entertainment has given us some quality films over the years.Naturally expectations are high.One good thing I like about his production house is that their casting is always spot on.Even the supporting actors are well casted(though I will never forget the inexplicable casting of Amitabh in Lakshya).The music in their films are always good.But the best thing about them is that their publicity is always low key and they allow their film to do most of the talking.
@ ANINDYA: very true. they have established a brand for themselves which guarantees a certain quality & hygiene. But i think, amidst these huge films all around, LBC wud have certainly used some more publik-city!
Gosh! U made me emosanal with this post. I remember mentioning about it in my blog sometime back. It has got the most ensemble cast, sorry kast and the kameos are to die for.. The fact that she managed to rope in all the Khans, Kapoors and other chillars.
But somehow I did not like the Hrithik doing that ‘thumka’ in Baawre.. He looks male-helen.
Oh, btw Farhan and Konkona.. can it get any better? So what one has to do have a look at ur songs & scenes..
Somebody explain me how can it not be real/honest/heart-wrenching if the makers/actors are from film clan. Duh-Uh!!!
@Magik, I was wondering why no LBC posts on namma PFC. The best thing about this movie is the story (I hope it’ll be good) and the casting (kasting). Any movie that involves Farhan will always be better than any regular fare that we see every Friday. And a nice post…dhanyavaadagalu..
@ Vick: hey u bet even i was a bit surprised that LBC has been thanda at namma pFC. I am sure its a sakkath hit movie bro… hehe glad to see the K Faktor spreading. LOL.
@ Oxy: “He looks male-helen” ROFLMAO. hope hrithik doesnt stumble on to dis!
hey magik, this post has been linked on the official luck by chance group on facebook. sahi hai bhai… bahut aage pahuch gayi aapki baat!
@ Yagi: thanks bro… its really nice of them to do so… wish farhan / zoya kud blog on pfc too!
Magik your vision… The names coming frm there kya?
@Duh!:
You seem to have crossed all the lines of WTFness! After all, judging a person by her family is the most uninformed opinion you could give.
And this, when we don’t even debate how realistic/unrealistic the rest of the family is… I could give you arguments, but won’t… coz it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter, when you are discussing one person, to talk about their families.
Sorry, for repeating the same point over and over again… but was astonished to read his (somehow have a feeling that it’s a “he”) comment and just couldn’t resist writing what I did.
@ PJ: didn’t quiet get u?
@ NK: bro, we’ll just let that guy be… he needs a magik ki jhappi… wink!
SEL rock completely rock with this one. IMHO the soundtrack of a movie is a firm indicator of the soul of the movie being in the right place or not – and LBC hits the bull eye on that front.
Plus, Konkona-Farhan & Juhi-Rishi – well that should be a treat. And Hrithik finally gets another “normal” role after Lakshya, even tho it might be just a cameo. He looks super in the “Zafar Khan ek image hai” clip from the promo – clearly enjoying himself.
Bring it on, Zoya – this one’s been due for very long!! We are waiting to be intelligently entertained.
@ Ess.El: true bro. SEL hold their own among all others… Eagerly waiting for LBC to release. Jai mata di. wink!
It would be interesting to see Aamir Khan’s..he does it rarely..its actually after Damini he’d be doing a cameo..what is it that pulled him to do this..2 days to go
the movie is an average…one not a must watch..though the promos had set the wave…For music review watch:http://friendsofmusic.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/luck-by-chance-%e2%80%93-a-music-melody/