Straight – Are You Happy And Gay?
While I was in high school, we guys had a little joke book which had some gay jokes as well. One of them was - Whats the height of being gay? The answer – When you can’t even think straight.
Thats exactly what this movie is about. Vinay Pathak as Pinu Patel is confused about his sexuality, as the title suggests already. What has compounded the problem is the fact that he has been a virgin for far too long, never had an escapade. And the first ever such encounter that happens to him is in the form of a peck on the cheek by a fellow worker. That totally leaves him dumbfounded.
Pinu Patel is a merry restaurateur in London, who goes about doing his work. He has never had an iota of fun and his life is quite dry until Renu and Kamlesh enter. Renu, beautifully played by Gul Panag, is looking refreshing and cute. The peck on the cheek which I mentioned above, comes from Kamlesh, a wannabe stand-up comedian, who joins the restaurant as a chef. Kamlesh wins a lottery and in one impulsive act he kisses Pinu. But his unintentional act makes Pinu doubt his own sexual orientation. He starts getting attracted to Kamlesh and not Renu.
Somewhere in between, this movie starts looking a lot like 40 Year Old Virgin, when Pinu makes all attempts to bed a woman; basically becasue he is trying to explore his sexuality and prove to himself that he is not gay. He makes all kinds of attempts with women to see if he gets turned-on by women or if he enjoys their company. And in one such attempt with Renu, he says that he is a virgin and she retorts that she is not; thereby giving us hints of feminism and sexual liberation.
Pinu does not have the hots for Renu, but looks forward to Kamlesh. Unlike Dostana, the issue is approached with much more sensitivity. But just when you start taking it seriously, they turn it into a cliched and melodramatic stuff; and make a mockery of it.
Somehow the movie meanders and right when we start getting restless and losing interest, Pinu’s cousin enters the scene and clears the air. He becomes Pinu’s friend, philosopher and guide; and answers all of Pinu’s questions.
The music of the movie is pretty good with nice hummable songs like Saanso Ka Rukna, which is picturised so well, and Humko Churaya. Sagar Desai has done good work.
The director of the movie, Parvati Balgopalan, has done a fairly decent job. Her second outing, first being Rules…Pyar Ka Superhit Formula, is a good follow-up; but a tad bit late. My reactions to both movies are the same though, just about average. I did not enjoy Rules… so much, but did appreciate the effort. Actually, Straight scores over the previous movie when it comes to the craft and handling the actors. Vinay Pathak is awesome as Pinu. The honesty he brings to the role is amazing, I just felt that he is being over-used and wasted in roles like these. He deserves better than this. Gul Panag is really good, she is improving frame-by-frame. This is the second movie with Vinay and Gul, first being Manorama-Six Feet Under. The surprise packet in the movie is Sidharth Makkar who plays Pinu’s cousin. Even Anuj Chaudhary as Kamlesh is very good and has ably supported Vinay Pathak.
The movie has a very good premise and first half, but loses steam in the second half. What could have been a fantastic movie, ends as an average-to-good movie. There was another joke going around during my shool-days : A man cannot be happily married, he can either be happy or be married. In Pinu Patel’s context : A man cannot be happily gay, he can either be happy or be gay.
Tags: gul panag, straight, Vinay Pathak
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
I did like ‘Rules’ for its fresh direction and the corrupting Daadi angle :-)
Tanuja was EXCELLENT!
It just goes to show u don’t have to be a Big B to get such an author backed role like hers.
I became a Tanuja fan all over again!
Meera Vasudevan was wonderful too!
Infact, she had an irresistable charm.
Quite Madhuri like.
So yes, i’ll definitely look out for this one :-)
yeah, tanuja was really good in tat movie…doling out tips
’straight’ is a also a pretty good watch, rib-tickling comedy…just the ending spoils the movie a bit….
Btw, does anyone know whatever happened to Meera?
She showed alot of promise!
Kahan geyi woh???
@Steve : meera went down south and acted in quite a few malayalam movies. she had a bit role in ‘thodi life thoda magic’ and ‘chain kuli ki main kuli’. both movies were absolutely crap. thodi life…had jackie shroff and chain kuli… had rahul bose. big box-office disasters :(
Got to watch this one….and yes, rals and steve, meera now acts in those “wonderful” tamil serials..saas bahu familial types.no clue why she went down those tracks….she was so fresh and gave that zing in Rules…i liked that film and this is from PG too…
Meera Vasudevan has indeed done a few tamil & malayalm movies as pointed out by Rals.Her best ever performance across all mediums according to me is in a malayalam movie- Thanmathra where she play’s Mohanlal’s wife!!!
@sethu: yes, tat i believe was her first malayalam movie. mohanlal suffers from alzheimer’s disease and how the family [wife and 2 kids] come to terms and handle it, forms the core of the movie…
When the fuck did this come out?
I loved RULES & have wondered at times what happened to the director.
The story does not interest me at all. But I’m sure Parvati has done a very good job of it.
Was this released in 2008?
@mainak : dude….this released last friday…20th Mar’ 09. where have u been???
find time and watch it, its better than ‘rules…’
by the way, the movie title is ’straight’… the happy and gay wala part is my addendum
What the…??!!
I thought she became an out of work actress who vanished into the oblivion!
Malayalam cinema? :-(
Then i’ll never get to see her!
It’s impossible to get hold of them over here.
‘Thodi Life Thodi..’ what?!
Oh man, lagta hain that any old bakwaas can be turned into a film aaj kal!
But, as i’m a loser, i’ll go and rent ‘Thodi Tacky Thodi Bakwaas’ and ‘Chain Khuli ke Ulti hui’ nonsense for Meera!
And Jackie Shroff man?!
Yeh woh kya kar raha hai?!
He’s wonderful, deserves MUCH BETTER!
@Steve : jackie definitely deserves something better. he shud just wait a while till he starts getting rishi kapoor kinda roles
and his getup is horrible
by the way…in ‘thodi lfe…’ movie jackie plays magic-baba
Rishi Kapoor is like the GOD OF ACTING imo!
Seriously, he lacks nothing!
Perfect dialogue delivery, amazing screen presence, wonderful expressions!
He’s no less than Amitabh for me!
A die hard fan.
So, if Jaggu dada gets Rishi roles, great.
But, Jackie has his own style and is WASTED!
Is he doing this due to some financial crisis??!
Man… It’s actually painful to see him in Z-grade rubbish!
‘Magic Baba’?? Wtf!
Ur taking the piss now! Lol….
Chalo. Ab toh woh bhi dekhni hi padegi!
‘Straight’ manages to create the impression ‘Dostana’ failed to make!
It’s honest and hilarious!
Our male ’stars’ should take a leaf out of Vinay Pathak’s book!
Definitely worth a watch :-)
The BGM could’ve been way better though!
I like Parvati’s sensibilities.
Well not personally, but u know what I mean!
It’s such a funny movie!
the movie is good, worth watching at least for vinay pathak. he is turning out to be quite bankable. and his sense of cinema is good, signing the right movies