CHEENI KUM

Starring Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Paresh Rawal, Zohra Sehgal, Swini Khara

Directed by R. Balki

Cheeni Kum is probably the sauciest, sassiest, slickest, smoothest and most scrumptious romantic comedy you'll see in the Hindi language in a long time.She's in London for a holiday. He is a cantankerous sarcastic chef who can't take a snub even when it's served up on a platter.

Cheeni Kam makes you forget there's a difference of 30 years between the girl and, ahem ahem, the boy. That's the magic of pure acting. The magic of two of the finest actors at work as they create an ebullient alchemy. On the menu in this mellow ode to love's luminous largesse are an 85 -year old mom (Zohra Sehgal) living life king-sized, a 7-year old terminally-ill girl (Swini Khara, the most prized discovery of the year) who watches claims the chef as her very intimate friend and watches all the adult DVDs he gets her, since she won't get a chance to do so later. Then there's heroine's Gandhian father who can't stop reminding his damaad-to-be of his autumnal age. And last but certainly not the least in this feisty feast, there's the churlish chef's kitchen staff comprising some of the most sparkling cameo-actors you've seen. Mr. Balki just sweeps that age thing under the carpet.

Yes, the dialogues make pointed barbed references to what it's like for two such generation-challenged people to come together and laugh at each other's foibles.It's hard to decide in which capacity Balki scores higher marks… as director or dialogue writer. Caustic and crisp, mordant and modern, pithy and passionate….the words weave a minty magic across this intelligent yet spontaneous comedy of romantic errors.Shakespeare meets Gulzar in this evocative and funny love story.The flavour of the exchanges between the wry surly chef in London and the serene Indian girl from Delhi who makes the cardinal mistake of criticizing the arrogant chef's Hyderabadi biryani, is so distinctly pungent and peppery you wonder which came first in the writer-director's range of vision: the mix-matched couple or the words that they exchange to bring each other closer to that feeling which we sometimes call love, sometimes don't even recognize it for what it is.

In the first -half cinematographer P.C Sreeram captures an unexplored side of London. As the relationship between the couple grows, you sense undercurrents of feisty defiant and mischievous feelings trickling out of the verbal banter that you until now thought existed only in the range of the unspoken. But then Mr Bachchan and Tabu are that kind of actors. They imbue every encounter on the rain-slickened streets of London into an occasion to celebrate the life force.Tabu is a natural-born scene-stealer. She more than meets her match in her co-star.Is there no end to the surprises Mr Bachchan springs on us periodically? To imagine Cheeni Kum without Bachchan(God he looks gorgeous in those suits) is to imagine that pivotal Hyderabadi biryani that brings the couple together, without the saffron..or any other flavour for that matter. This intimate, amusing warm and utterly beguiling intimate character-study of love and its sudden appearance in lives that have accepted its non-presence, derives considerable energy from the supporting cast. Not Paresh Rawail who as Mr Bachchan's outraged father-in-law –to-be is surprisingly bland, but Zohra Sehgal as Mr Bachchan's spunky mother and more specially, little Swini Khara as Mr Bachchan's nextdoor neighbour who in her terminal illness provides the narrative with the gift of life….grab the lapels of your heart and sweep you into a world of love's most satirical fears and foibles.There are moments in this quirky captivating and curvaceous cinema that touch the highest notes of drama without getting hysterical.What makes Cheeni Kum so unique? Is it the amazingly laidback chemistry between the lead pair? Is it the combination of satire and romance, mixed stirred and served up in a tall frothy glass? It is Balki's word-spin that takes the romance into areas of absolutely seductive brightness? Is it the the way London (mellow, supple, sensuous) and Delhi (heated grimy and spiced up) have ben captured by Sreeram's calmly articulate cinematography? Or is it Ilayaraja's talcum-fresh melodies trickling emotions in austere motions?What makes Cheeni Kum so special in spite of a far-from-flawless second-half?Could it be just the magic between Amitabh Bachchan and Tabu who seem to look into each other's eyes and souls with such warmth and affection you forget their age difference completely. Nah! It's more. Cheeni Kum is a film where the words so match the thoughts and feelings of the characters that you forget someone else wrote the dialogues for the unlikely lovers. This movie is a novelty for India, a movie comprising mostly of intelligent, dialogue based humour rather than on situations or slapstick. Undoubtedly it has got the best dialogues among recent movies.

The true brilliance of the movie lies in the life / spark infused in even the simplest of situations or the simplest of characters. Whether it's the interaction amongst the chef's in the restaurant, the waiter hilariously nicknamed Colgate because of his protruding teeth and the jokes at their expense ('Iske Liye Dimaag Ki Zaroorat Hai, Daant Ki Nahin', he is gently admonished on one occasion), the Sardarji pharmacist and Amitabh's interactions with him, Amitabh's mom's fascination with the gym in the face of her sons obvious reluctance to go anywhere near it, his acerbic comments on his mom's cooking ('yeh Tihar Jail Waali Dal ?'), Paresh Rawal's love of cricket and Gandhism. It goes on and on. I was in near-hysterical splits on no less than 10 occasions. The movie also captures amazingly well the highs and lows of falling in love.

The only negative point of the movie is its pace.