Subhash K Jha revisits 2007 and the zany film Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd, which starred the brilliant cast of Abhay Deol, Minissha Lamba, Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Kay Kay Menon, Raima Sen, Karan Khanna, Sandhya Mridul, Vikram Chatwal, Ameesha Patel, and Dia Mirza.
Reema Kagti’s debut film Honeymoon Travels Pvt Ltd has enough chutzpah to keep you purring at the blend of parody and pathos. Once you get into the narrative groove of these imperfectly matched couples riding into a hectic, hilarious honeymoon in Goa, you’re in for a minor treat. The six couples are joined at the hip and the lip by some commanding inflexions that bind the people in a tongue that’s easy to identify… provided you’ve ever been married. Even if you haven’t been on a honeymoon, get a load of these feisty honeymooners, feasting on the first flush of love, romance, sex, and bickering on a trip that makes us smile for a mile and chuckle for a brief way, too.
What really holds the film together are the players. Everyone from the commanding Shabana to the sassy Raima are out to have fun. And there are some picturesque whispers about how a marriage can go wrong at its startling start.
Watch newly married husbands Vikram Chatkwal and Karan Kapoor getting attracted to each other while their respective wives scratch their heads, wondering why the bed seems so dead. Sassy, savvy, and sometimes slippery, the scenes and lines are delicately written and carry the narrative forward with nimble savoir-faire. Debutant director Reema Kagti knows her cinema with prideful originality.
Whether sensitive (watch the sequence where Boman and Shabana check out his lost ancestral property in the concrete jungle of Goa) or plain wacky (watch Kay Kay lose his marbles to lead the entire cast in a trance dance on a dithering boat), you can’t trace Honeymoon Travels back to any source, pvt or public.
The performances are all almost uniformly believably and effervescent. Every actor works within his or her limits to create a portable universe of credible emotions. Kay Kay Menon and Raima, as the timid husband and bindaas wife, are particularly endearing. And you simply HAVE to see Abhay Deol and Minissha Lamba do the Lambada to know they are made for each other…at least in this film. But you wish Kagti hadn’t turned this made-for-each-pair into Superman and Supergirl. For Chrissake, if Kagti had wanted F-X, she could have made Boman’s wig fly into Amisha’s fast-moving mouth.
Shabana Azmi and Boman Irani create their own magic. Though considering their histrionic stature, you wish there was more space for them. The nimble editing allows no space to miss anything beyond the pace. Not breathless but brisk, Honeymoon moves on confident feet. It doesn’t purport to make serious statements about the quality of life and marriage. Instead, it tells you to loosen up about issues that would generally address large amounts of tissues. And you can start looking for a pun in that last sentence only when you stop having fun watching this breed-easy satire.
