MADNESS TAKEN TOO FAR

Ishq Tera

STARRING Hrishitaa Bhatt, Mohit Madaan, Mozhgan Taraneh, Shahbaaz Khan, Aman Verma, Ganesh Yadav and Manoj Pahwa

DIRECTOR Jojo D’Souza

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Ishq Tera is a lm that approaches its subject so blatantly that it almost screams deafeningly. The story wants to be about love, but is also about madness, and somehow it does not weave the two together with a charm that would otherwise be heart-warming in real life.

Apparently based on real life events, it is the story of a schizophrenic and her devoted husband. Their tale lacks chemistry, history and geography.

The narrative begins with establishing that Kalpana (Hrishitaa Bhatt) had an abused childhood. Traumatised after the death of her sibling and mother, she suffers from schizophrenia and her personality alternates with her alter ego. During her good periods, she is docile and demure as Kalpana and she is outrageously irty and abusive with mankind as Laila, during her bad times.

Between the periods of her insanity,

Kalpana meets Rahul (Mohit Madaan) who gets besotted with her. They get married. But their romance is not made in heaven for there is no chemistry between them and one ne day, Kalpana announces that she is pregnant.

Six years later, Kalpana still suffering from her mental illness, leads an independent life along with her daughter (Kavya). She works in an advertising agency facing sexual harassment from her boss (Manoj Pahwa) and falls in love with her colleague. Rahul lurks in the background of her life, hoping that his love and patience can help Kalpana overcome her problem.

The script is convoluted. The plot and the dialogues are mediocre. The narrative has no consistency and it meanders at points. On the directorial front, there are scenes that are shoddily mounted. Also the characters have no depth or motive.

The lm is Hrishitaa’s canvas. She usually plays sane characters. She is able to build an essentially wordless performance out of expressions and gesture. She aptly swings in an instant, from calm to rage, picking on little things that set her off.

Mohit Madaan

seems like a Hrithik Roshan clone, despite having a pleasing screen personality. It is sad that the script does not back him to let us see that falls in love with Dev, but Dev’s heart is all Paro’s.

Needless to say, the actual lm comes as a shock, for the off-kilter romance though meticulously constructed, is set in a convoluted plot where the centre-stage is retrograde politics. The romance is lost in the political maze. Also, the story seems to be set in some bygone era, for today’s rural India is not like how it is portrayed here. The characterisation too, seems forced and fabricated.

Also, the direction in some scenes appears amateurishly mounted. Case in point is witnessed when, Paro after being shot, lands in the driveway of the hospital wounded. There is no reaction from her co-actors.

On the performance front, Rahul Bhat offers a fairly decent portrayal of Dev but you fail to empathise with him, simply because of his poorly chalked out character graph and his equally weak onscreen chemistry with both the leading ladies. His performance uctuates from forceful to hamming, at regular intervals.

Richa Chadda as Paro, is equally lacklustre. Adding no nuances to her character, she walks through her role unenthusiastically. As Chandni, Aditi Rao Hydari does offer a bit of intrigue to her character, but her poorly etched role does not help her make the part memorable.

While the lm boasts of decent production values, overall it fails to engross you.

Troy Ribeiro

his love for his wife underlies all his decisions. Overall, the lm is a poor sell.

Troy Ribeiro