Movie Review : Aisha

Rating : Above average (3.9/5)
Genre : Romance
Year : 2010
Running time : 2 hours
Director : Rajshree Ojha
Cast : Abhay Deol, Sonam Kapoor, Ira Dubey, Amrita Puri, Cyrus Sahukar, Lisa Haydon, Anuradha Patel, M.K. Raina
Kid rating : G


AISHA : PEPPY, FEEL-GOOD ROMANCE !

Matches are made in heaven, but you’ve got earthly help too now. Meet Aisha Kapoor (Sonam Kapoor), richie-rich Daddy’s girl, and meddlesome matchmaker extraordinaire. Aisha’s hobbies in life are : shopping, spending Dad’s money, and match-making. Essentially good-hearted, this lost child-woman, means well, but bumbles through her life pairing people up the wrong way.

When she undertakes the grooming of “middle-class” Shefali to enable her to find a Delhi-bred husband, she is assisted in her endeavor by good friend Pinky Bose. However there’s always one person who finds fault with her I-know-it-all attitude, and that’s her child-hood friend Arjun Burman (Abhay Deol). Faced with his withering criticism, and seeing all her potential love-matches turn on their head, Aisha is starting to doubt her match-making skills . . .

Aisha is “loosely” based upon Jane Austen’s much acclaimed novel Emma. The central characters are relatively the same, but the situations have been massively Indianised. Sonam of course portrays the nosy heroine, and does marvelously, her exuberant personality and fetching good looks serving her well. Her quirky sidekicks are Pinky played by Ira Dubey (Lilette Dubey’s daughter, she was also in “The President is coming”), and the Cinderella wanna-be Shefali (Amrita Puri). Dubey and Puri both are fantastic, Dubey in particular portraying the caustic Pinky very well. Abhay Deol plays the role of Mr. Knightley, Emma’s critic and good friend, and delivers the much-needed maturity to the role.

For a first-time commercial film (she has directed lesser-known, low-budget films earlier), director Rajshree Ojha does outstandingly well. The film is slick, with great production quality and flows along smoothly. Characters are relatively well-developed, and the talented cast does justice to the roles. The dialogues were pretty realistic, and showed a sense of humor. Ojha portrays the camaraderie between friends and family very well, and handles the emotional nuances with a delicate touch.

Although Emma has been the subject of many adaptations, this novel situated in Victorian times is particularly suited to the Indian film scene (much like “Pride and Prejudice”) because match-making is India’s national past-time (I kid you not). Of course this is match-making for (and by) the very-rich, because it tells the story of pretty-young-things who don’t have to worry much about where the next Dior dress is coming from. And in that it reminded me of “Dil Chahta hai”, since that too portrayed the lives of the elite upper-class – the kinds who fly off to Mumbai (or Goa) at a whim, or think nothing of running up a bill of a few lakhs shopping at swanky designer malls.

Amit Trivedi produces an amazing soundtrack for this film. The title track “Suno Aisha” is a wonderful, peppy, offbeat number. I loved the almost-live feel of “Sham” , and “Gal mithi-mithi bol” is an energetic Punjabi number, thrumming with techno-bhangra beats. Javed Akhtar’s tasteful lyrics are the crowning jewel of a wonderful soundtrack.

If you’re looking for a faithful adaptation of Emma, this is not it – remember this is cliché-ridden Bollywood. But if you’re looking for a feel-good, light, fluffy fun film, Aisha is what you want. One of the better films of the year, I highly recommend this stylish movie.

Kid-wise : This is a clean, classy film – no double entendres and no vulgarity. It has one liplock, and some material which conceptually might be unintelligible to younger kids. On the whole though, pretty family-friendly.