Review : Being Cyrus

[amazon_link id=”B004BF0DQG” target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ][/amazon_link]Rating : Average (3.2/5)
Genre : Suspense/Thriller
Year : 2006
Running time : 90 minutes
Director : Homi Adajania
Cast : Saif Ali Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, Dimple Kapadia, Boman Irani, Simone Singh, Honey Chhaya, Manoj Pahwa

BEING CYRUS : DARK !

“Being Cyrus” is very different from regular desi films, because for one thing it’s completely in English, and secondly deals with psychotic characters, deranged in their own, very specific way by dint of their own, very specific circumstance – a subject very rarely touched upon by Bollywood. While the film is about average, and acting here is OK, the characters (especially the psycho ones) needed more in-depth development.

Cyrus (Saif) is an art/pottery student, come to apprentice under the famous, but defunct in his old age, Dinshaw Sethna (Shah). Sethna lives in Panchgani, away from city-life, with his pretty, but dissatisfied wife Katy (Dimple). He also has a brother Farokh (Irani) who lives with his demure, docile wife Tina (Simone) and his old father Fardoonjee (Honey Chaya) in Pune, where Farokh manages his father’s property, an apartment building. As Cyrus settles into the Sethna household and begins an affair with Katy, under Dinshaw’s unsuspecting nose, he along with helping with household chores is often sent into Pune by Katy, with gifts for her father-in-law.

Amiable Cyrus is soon embroiled into Katy’s plan, for what he does not know is that Katy and her brother-in-law love each other, and she’s hatched a scheme to leave Dinshaw and her unexciting life in Panchgani for Farokh and his father’s inheritance . . .

The story is vaguely interesting – you don’t know where it’s going ot what, if anything, it’s building upto. The Sethnas are an odd bunch, Dinshaw amiable but stoned and impractical, Katy, sweet but a screaming banshee, Farokh, cruel and boorish, and Tina, much too docile to be true. Fardoonjee the father is mis-treated by Farokh and borders on senility. We view all these people through Cyrus’s eyes, through Cyris’s narration of the happenings, and we know through snatches of Cyrus’s inner voice that he has emotional problems of his own. A great cast of characters for bizarre happenings and unexpected results.

However, What is frustrating in the script, is that after all this build-up and this seemingly perfect cast of odd characters, it piques your interest with little bits of psycho babble, and a few seemingly disjointed asides/flashbacks but doesn’t deliver on the promise. Probably the flaw in the film lies in that when the climax comes and things start falling into place, it comes with such little impact that it’s not worth the money. Subtlety has it’s virtues but let’s not overdo it. I do think that the second-half of the film sits better than the first half, and as a teacher of mine once put it – If the ending seems to lack punch, the problem is probably in the body of the story, the begining and middle have not been sufficiently developed to prepare the audience for the end.

I also found character development lacking – if you are building a character to be a full-scale mad-man/woman, then you need to do a little more than show the character clutching his/her head in moments of stress. As far as the acting goes, Shah, Manoj Pahwa, Irani are very good. Dimple, a decent actress otherwise, over-acts – her shreiks ring in your ears. Saif tries hard, but his character fails to convince – and that might be character development and not his acting – I’m not sure.

This film is definitely intelligent, put-your-thinking-caps-on cinema. And while it is watchable it’s not an easy-going entertainer for the family.