Fashion (2008) movie photos and poster :
Fashion (2008) Movie Rating and Review :
Rating :
Acting – 7/10
Direction – 6/10
Screenplay – 5/10
Music – 7/10
Technique – 6/10
Review :
Rise and fall of the ramp queen
As she scratches the carpet with the long black nails of her manicured hand, your heart creeps to your mouth. She tries in vain to wipe the make-up from her face just like you try to ease the churning in your stomach. She howls and you shudder at the horror of the underbelly of one of the most glamourous professions around.
This scene, when Priyanka Chopra’s Meghna finally confronts herself in the mirror, is the centrepiece of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. A film that could have easily been Bollywood’s Requiem for a Dream but falls well short because of the excess of filmi cliches used as plot points. And at 160 minutes, Fashion certainly could have been shorter.
Unlike in his last film Traffic Signal, where he forgot about the plot in his effort to portray the realities of the road, Bhandarkar has a fantastic premise in Fashion. There’s the small-town model with a bag-full of middle-class moralities and there’s the successful showstopper queen spiralling down the graph. The struggler stands behind and watches the veteran take the bow at the ramp head. You know the roles will be reversed and you readily join them on their opposite journeys.
The journeys, however, are not exactly sourced from the world of fashion. An abusive boyfriend with packets of coke can turn up in any profession and business tycoons can use and throw impressionable girls even in the world of movies. And the whole episode of Meghna parting ways with Arjan Bajwa’s character Manav is straight out of The Devil Wears Prada.
But Bhandarkar cleverly punctuates these hackneyed hooks with carefully plucked ramp headlines. So every time the lackadaisical proceedings almost put you to sleep, you have the Carol Gracias moment or the Geetanjali Nagpal episode to draw you back. And there is, of course, that brilliant Bhandarkar set-piece when Meghna snorts coke, goes ballistic on the dance floor and wakes up in the middle of the night to discover herself in bed with the black drug peddler. Back home, the Chandigarh girl realises how low she has stooped to conquer.
The major problem with Fashion is that because of the world it inhabits — models, fashion designers, photographers, socialites, modelling agents, model co-ordinators — the film frequently lands up into Page 3 and Corporate terrain. Bhandarkar tries his best to steer clear of repetitions but it’s hard to bypass the sense of déjà vu every time three photographers indulge in small talk or socialites get bitchy. You can call it the directorial signature but the other way of looking at it is that the man has run out of ideas.
One thing you cannot blame Bhandarkar for: miscasting. The ensemble cast is again top notch, whether it’s Arbaaz Khan as the retail honcho, Kitu Gidwani as the head of the modelling agency, Sameer Soni as the good-hearted gay designer, Harsh Chhaya as the hot-headed haughty designer and Chitrashi Rawat (Chak De! India’s Komal Chautala) as the model co-ordinator.
Mugdha Godse makes a fine debut as the level-headed model with limited dreams who doesn’t flinch to marry a gay friend and bail him out of his social miseries. Kangana Ranaut uses her physicality beautifully, from the ramp to the road, but her dialogue delivery continues to stick out like a sore thumb. She may have just half a page of lines but they undo all the good work she puts in.
It’s true that Fashion is the role of her career till date, but Priyanka Chopra is also saddled with a half-baked character. Why does she suddenly turn so arrogant post-success? Why does she suddenly hatch plans of becoming a mother? Why does such an ambitious mind jeopardise her career just like that? It’s to her credit that Priyanka towers above all the inconsistencies and delivers a commendable performance. Maybe there are actresses around who could have done a better job but not many of them look as stunning, an obvious requisite for this role.
Giving Fashion the much-needed glossy wraparound are Mahesh Limaye’s cinematography and Nitin Desai’s art direction. And just like no fashion show is complete without rocking catwalk music, Fashion would have been far less watchable without Salim-Sulaiman’s masterful score. The songs — Jalwa, Mar jawan, Kuch khas hai — work beautifully and the background music breathes energy into almost every frame.
Fashion, in the end, is a very uneven ride. There are loads of drab patches but if you manage to sit through them, the bumpers are sure to have you shaken and stirred!
Acting – 7/10
Direction – 6/10
Screenplay – 5/10
Music – 7/10
Technique – 6/10
Review :
Rise and fall of the ramp queen
As she scratches the carpet with the long black nails of her manicured hand, your heart creeps to your mouth. She tries in vain to wipe the make-up from her face just like you try to ease the churning in your stomach. She howls and you shudder at the horror of the underbelly of one of the most glamourous professions around.
This scene, when Priyanka Chopra’s Meghna finally confronts herself in the mirror, is the centrepiece of Madhur Bhandarkar’s Fashion. A film that could have easily been Bollywood’s Requiem for a Dream but falls well short because of the excess of filmi cliches used as plot points. And at 160 minutes, Fashion certainly could have been shorter.
Unlike in his last film Traffic Signal, where he forgot about the plot in his effort to portray the realities of the road, Bhandarkar has a fantastic premise in Fashion. There’s the small-town model with a bag-full of middle-class moralities and there’s the successful showstopper queen spiralling down the graph. The struggler stands behind and watches the veteran take the bow at the ramp head. You know the roles will be reversed and you readily join them on their opposite journeys.
The journeys, however, are not exactly sourced from the world of fashion. An abusive boyfriend with packets of coke can turn up in any profession and business tycoons can use and throw impressionable girls even in the world of movies. And the whole episode of Meghna parting ways with Arjan Bajwa’s character Manav is straight out of The Devil Wears Prada.
But Bhandarkar cleverly punctuates these hackneyed hooks with carefully plucked ramp headlines. So every time the lackadaisical proceedings almost put you to sleep, you have the Carol Gracias moment or the Geetanjali Nagpal episode to draw you back. And there is, of course, that brilliant Bhandarkar set-piece when Meghna snorts coke, goes ballistic on the dance floor and wakes up in the middle of the night to discover herself in bed with the black drug peddler. Back home, the Chandigarh girl realises how low she has stooped to conquer.
The major problem with Fashion is that because of the world it inhabits — models, fashion designers, photographers, socialites, modelling agents, model co-ordinators — the film frequently lands up into Page 3 and Corporate terrain. Bhandarkar tries his best to steer clear of repetitions but it’s hard to bypass the sense of déjà vu every time three photographers indulge in small talk or socialites get bitchy. You can call it the directorial signature but the other way of looking at it is that the man has run out of ideas.
One thing you cannot blame Bhandarkar for: miscasting. The ensemble cast is again top notch, whether it’s Arbaaz Khan as the retail honcho, Kitu Gidwani as the head of the modelling agency, Sameer Soni as the good-hearted gay designer, Harsh Chhaya as the hot-headed haughty designer and Chitrashi Rawat (Chak De! India’s Komal Chautala) as the model co-ordinator.
Mugdha Godse makes a fine debut as the level-headed model with limited dreams who doesn’t flinch to marry a gay friend and bail him out of his social miseries. Kangana Ranaut uses her physicality beautifully, from the ramp to the road, but her dialogue delivery continues to stick out like a sore thumb. She may have just half a page of lines but they undo all the good work she puts in.
It’s true that Fashion is the role of her career till date, but Priyanka Chopra is also saddled with a half-baked character. Why does she suddenly turn so arrogant post-success? Why does she suddenly hatch plans of becoming a mother? Why does such an ambitious mind jeopardise her career just like that? It’s to her credit that Priyanka towers above all the inconsistencies and delivers a commendable performance. Maybe there are actresses around who could have done a better job but not many of them look as stunning, an obvious requisite for this role.
Giving Fashion the much-needed glossy wraparound are Mahesh Limaye’s cinematography and Nitin Desai’s art direction. And just like no fashion show is complete without rocking catwalk music, Fashion would have been far less watchable without Salim-Sulaiman’s masterful score. The songs — Jalwa, Mar jawan, Kuch khas hai — work beautifully and the background music breathes energy into almost every frame.
Fashion, in the end, is a very uneven ride. There are loads of drab patches but if you manage to sit through them, the bumpers are sure to have you shaken and stirred!
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