‘Why always the same story’ reads the tagline of this movie. In essence, any love story at its core is always the same – Boy and Girl meet, fall in love, their love gets tested by difficult times. The only thing that varies is the “villain’ in the story. Earlier, Love had to fight the Society creating obstacles, then it was the family. For the current generation, it’s the inner demons which we often need to tackle. Imtiaz Ali uses this backdrop to give a sad sweet love story through Tamasha.
Amidst the gorgeous backdrop of Corcisa, Ranbir Kapoor and Deepika Padukone have a chance encounter. The two decide to never reveal anything about them – “Familiarity leads to boredom”, says Ranbir’s character – and promise to not meet each other after they part ways. They spend their one week together having the time of their lives and before they know it’s time to return to their old lives. But does whatever happen in Corcisa really stay in Corsica? Back home Tara (Deepika) beings to miss the crazy times she had with him and sets out to find the “dramebaaz” she has fallen in love with. But who she finds instead is a 9-to-5 kind of, yes sir/no sir tie wearing, monotonous Production Manager Ved (Ranbir) not the “Don” she had fallen for.
Tamasha in every sense is a typical Imtiaz Ali movie – soulful music, a tragic love angle, beautiful cinematography and a different take on a known storyline – a movie which either you will love or you will hate depending on what you take away from it. In this movie, he uses an incredibly innovative style of story-telling using the backdrop of Ved’s obsession with stories and theatre. Add to that the oh-so-pristine locations of Corcisa captured by Ravi Varman and you have a piece of art that is visually so appealing! Of course, if we talk about the highlight of this movie it would definitely be the performances by the lead cast. It’s a delight to watch Ranbir Kapoor – frankly after movies like Rockstar and Barfi, there was never a doubt that with the right movies he can deliver soul steering performances. As Ved, who leads a mechanical life with his mediocre work but lights up every time a story is heard or told by him, Ranbir manages to connect with everyone who ever had to give up their passion for “stability”. But for me Deepika was the star; the movie revolves more around Ranbir but Deepika manages to make heads turn with an amazing performance. In a way this movie is closer to Rockstar than any of Imtiaz’s movies – I had always felt that Rockstar would have been more heartfelt if it had an actress who could make you fall in love with her and Deepika’s shows just how it could have been.
Yes, the movie has its own share of faults. There are parts in the movie where you can find a bit of repetitiveness and you can feel a wax and wane in your interest. For the first half, the main characters do not reveal anything about themselves. And while this is so that they do not become emotionally attached with each other, it prevents the audience from doing so as well. It’s only in the second half where you get a background (again, just Ved’s not Tara) that Ved’s story begins to make sense. Do what your heart wants is a topic dealt in a quite a few movies recently – Wake up Sid, 3 Idiots, Rock On!, Taare Zameen Par – and the resolution of this issue in the movie seems too quick and easy to be believable.
In spite of the flaws, Tamasha is one movie which will make you appreciate the director’s vision of giving us something quirky and unique. What Shaandar could not achieve, Tamasha does. Of course, the audience with a favorite diet of the “300 crore club” kind of movies may hastily tag this movie as boring. My advice, ignore them and watch this movie at least once – who knows, it manage to strike a chord!
