Fashion (drama)
Cast: Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mughda Godse, Arjan Bajwa
Direction: Madhur Bhandarkar
Critic's rating:
*

WITH Chandni Bar, Page 3, Corporate and Traffic Signal behind him, director Madhur Bhandarkar has developed a trademark style of film making which has the word `realistic' incessantly tagged on to it, by both the viewers and the industrywallahs. Well, Bhandarkar's oeuvre may not exactly fall into the classic cinema verite cult, nevertheless, it does try to bridge the gap between art house cinema and mainstream masala with its declaration: Are you ready for the bitter truth? Yup.

Each time the filmmaker picks up a subject, he proposes to do an expose on a particular segment of society. And each time, there is a dogged attempt to reveal the underbelly: ugly, festering and foul. Fashion too falls prey to this inbuilt bias of the director's creative vision and introduces a degree of predictability in the plot. The first half of the film is a relentless replay of all the cliches one would associate with the world of glamour. Small town girls need to shed their middle class morality before they can scale the ladder of success.

Successful models are sad, lonely, broken people, addicted to drugs, alcohol, cigarettes. Godfathers are cruel, manipulative, exploitative. And last but not least, Brokeback Mountain isn't just a film for male fashion designers; it's a lifestyle statement for most of them.

Mercifully, Fashion isn't about cliches alone and manages to transcend them with it's moving tale of three women who try to maintain their honour, dignity, identity in a cruel world that spills over with grime behind the glamour. The film not only takes you behind the psychedelic ramp, it travels through the dark inner recesses of the three lead characters, laying bare their strengths and weaknesses; their fears and hopes; their dreams and nightmares.

If Meghna Mathur's (Priyanka Chopra) journey from Chandigarh to Mumbai is a tortuous coming-of-age sojourn for a small town girl who dreams to become a super model, then reigning diva, Shonali Gujral (Kangana Ranaut) travels through her own personal inferno, ending up totally singed when the arc lights fade. Between them is Janet Sequeira (Mughda Godse), the high on EQ model who chose to make her own compromises by giving up her career and settling down in a faux marriage with her gay designer friend, Samir Soni. Three distinct women who make a choice between success and failure, sanity and insanity, life and loneliness...and create a sensitive parable on bonding and empowerment.

Dramatically, it's Priyanka's journey that is the most comprehensive as it tackles her growth from an ambitious, young girl to an arrogant model who fails to handle her success, crumbles and then rises again, like the proverbial Phoenix. The actress delivers a competent performance and yet, has tough competition from the other two girls.

Debutante Mughda pitches in a confident portrayal of the sweet and sensitive buddy. But the show stopper (read scene stealer) is crazy, kinky, Kangana who does an exquisite metamorphosis from a wispy, high-strung, nervous child-woman to a stunning ramp diva. Watch her handle her wardrobe malfunction, make faces at her nagging manager or exchange bitter workplace truths with rival Priyanka in the ladies' washroom and you'll realise she's perfected the Girl Interrupted act after similar roles in Woh Lamhe, Life in a Metro and Gangster . The men? No place for them, specially since the women completely overshadow them.

Of course, the film desperately needs some tight editing to cut out the flab. Nevertheless, go, witness woman power, in all its agony and ecstasy.

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