No one killed jessica
Thanks to colors channel, finally watched the movie today!
This had been on my ‘will have to see’ movie cause it was a movie was purported to have been made on a issue that had caught the national interest just a few years ago. What stopped me from watching the movie in the theatres was the twin reason of rani mukherjee and vidya balan as the protagonists. Somehow I always find vidya balan irritating(except for her very first movie pareenita) , and nowadays rani mukherjee is getting to be good at the stuff too. If it weren’t for the “look india, im such a matyr’ look of vidya and ‘look at my outstrethed boobs, so…I’m THE bitch’ attitude of rani in the posters, perhaps I would have seen it in
the theatres too, the week it got released.
Anyways, am glad I could catch it at least now.
Vidya and Rani as I expected were the jarring notes in this otherwise compact, no nonsense styled movie. Somehow it does seem a shame that a movie on a relevant social cause like no one killed jesica, can be made only if it can manage to draw the star power of so called stars, even though they are considered to belong to a better breed of ‘actors’ in an otherwise mediocre acting skilled hindi film industry, and yet when the movie is finally made it’s the artificial refinement of these same actors that robs the much needed authenticity from the movie. Like rani does not come across as a sweetheart bitch journalist as much as she comes across as actresses rani trying toooooooo hard to be a sweetheart bitch journalist, but ends up just a foul mouthed over acting caricature of a journalist,(kangana, who could have managed to play the detached bitch, who can also surprising turn around and be the good girl for a change, instead of rani who played it less efficiently like an attached sweetheart who is a bitch cause its cool; or konkona, as the inelligent, not so beautiful vulnerable sister of the glamourous jessica, wud have done loads of justice I feel). Unfortunately, such roles don’t go konkana or kangana for lack of godfathers and manipulative
career strategies.
Its bollywood’s loss really.
Vidya also seems to get caught up in thinking that the deglamourised spectacled ‘look’ is good enough, for giving a performance. Its almost like there is no competition at all in the acting deparment to these women so that a little better acting than average, is given the tag of brilliant. but somehow it fails to touch u, especially in the core scene, i.e the showdown between rani and vidya. Both actors failed miserably in that scene, (rani in many other scenes too)…vidya just could could not portray the pathos of a young 28 year old woman who, at age 22, set out to get justice for her sister, trusting the system, the judiciary, the police, the people, the masses and the slow but steady erosion off her faith, so much so, that just six years later, while the whole nation was now rallying behind her, she doesn’t want to have do anything with the case.. she no longer wants justice, (not because she does not want it, not that she has become a saint, but because life taught her the bitter lesson that there is no justice, for anybody. Its life, (and not rani!) that’s the bitch. She just wanted a closure.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, all the other characters other than vidya and rani make a wonderful impact..they all fit the bill, right from the killer, Sharma(or whatever he was named), both the lawyers, the corrupt policeman with enough morals to make him want jesica to get justice, the struggling actor who did not know ‘hindi’, the itsy bitsy girls and guys who, decided to that enough is enough and decided to do away with that the sham of justice being done…even the new lanky girl who played jesica. All have done justice to their jobs.
Well kudos to the makers anyways, for trying to make an entertaining film out of a socially revelant cause, and i guess rani and vidya deserve kudos for at least giving it a try!
wel done guys!
