Andaaz must be the most iconoclastic film about familial ties ever put together for the pleasure of the Hindi-speaking masses. Not a single religious deity is shown in the length and breadth of the film. Instead, we have the two love goddesses, debutante Lara Dutta and semi-debutante Priyanka Chopra, vying for the attention of Akshay Kumar, sometimes separately, at other times together.
Compared with producer Suneel Darshan’s earlier films (Jaanwar, Ek Rishta: The Bond Of Love and Talaash), Andaaz is eminently brash and upfront about its female protagonist’s sexuality. The film offers a curious synthesis of sobs and cleavage.
In the popular Rabba Ishq Na Hove number, shot by cinematographer Ishwar Bidri with imaginative skills on sizzling dunes, Lara and Priyanka put the lather of vigour into their hips and lips as they writhe, cavort, and sway sensuously all over the hero. It’s the closest mainstream Hindi cinema has come to a menage à trois. As the two leading ladies redefine mass-oriented sex appeal, we chew our nails in suspense, wondering who would win the skin competition.
For the record, Priyanka Chopra wins by a wide margin. Her sassy, utterly uninhibited camera cavort makes Bipasha Basu’s Jism appear like a warming-up ceremony. In comparison, Lara Dutta’s author-backed role is more sober. Dutta’s wide-angled character goes from tomboyish tang to widowed tragedy. She’s got the power.
Like most love triangles down the years, from Mehboob Khan’s Andaz in the 1940s and Bimal Roy’s Devdas in the ’50s, Raj Kanwar’s Andaaz focuses on the two women while the male protagonist plays a passive part in the triangle.
Like Bhansali’s Devdas, Kanwar’s protagonist sees his beloved off after her marriage to another man. The traditional palki changes to a more trendy car, just as Kanwar’s Paro and Chandramukhi change from elaborate brocade and silk to minimal denim and cotton.
In one song sequence, where Priyanka fantasizes about getting the hero, the clothes are brief while the copulatory suggestions are alarmingly prolonged. Never before have mainstream stars gone so far with their gyrating ambitions. Kanwar pulls back in time to sort out the triangle through a conventional high-voltage confrontational sequence. By then, you wonder if the audience could relocate their attention from the loins to the heart.
Producer Suneel Darshan and director Raj Kanwar have styled a provocative mix of sensuousness and melodrama. The Air Force background, with aircraft tearing across the blue horizon, provides the simmering plot with a touch of the sky. Like Devdas, the film opens with the modern-day Devdas and Paro frolicking in a synthetic arcadia. The children who play the protagonists come up with atrocious performances. Luckily for us, and the narrative, the adults get into their grooves with far more facility.
The early sequences between “best friends” Akshay and Lara Dutta are fairly engaging and rapidly narrated, though the constant intervention of Johnny Lever’s comic relief seems redundant when Akshay is so adept at the funny stuff.
Whether Lever’s comedy or Priyanka Chopra’s uninhibited sensuousness, Kanwar doesn’t know where to stop. Sequences such as the one where Priyanka invites Akshay to hide inside her towel would qualify as vulgar were it not for the two actors whose charisma converts the crude into the cute.
The pre-interval drama, when Kajal (Lara Dutta) tells her buddy (Akshay) she has fallen in love with a tycoon (Aman Verma, looking silly instead of suave), is skillfully edited. The sequence cleverly turns around Shah Rukh’s celebrated confession scene when he blabbers out his love for Rani Mukherjee before Kajol in Karan Johar’s Kuch Kuch Hota Hai.
The notion of two people from the opposite sex being platonic “best friends” has gained feverish currency since Johar’s film. Unlike Mujhse Dosti Karoge or Tujhe Meri Kasam, Andaaz doesn’t stress teenybopper temptations. The three principal players are projected as characters in full control of their minds and bodies. Here, destiny is what you do to yourself rather than what other powers do to you.
By the time Kanwar comes to the last lap of his gyrating journey, the audience gets a hang of the narrative’s libidinous lachrymosity. In a delicious twist of fate, the two leading ladies end up as sisters-in-law vying for the modern-day Devdas.
Akshay Kumar shows restraint in even the most exacerbated moments. His newly styled hair and choreographic movements go a long way in renewing his agile image. The two leading ladies are undoubtedly the film’s USP. Though not conventionally beautiful, Lara Dutta has a powerful role which she performs with surprising ease. In her widowed avatar, she reminds us of Padmini Kolhapure in Raj Kapoor’s Prem Rog. She has a long career ahead.
Priyanka Chopra is the film’s shocker. Her brassy determination to “get” the hero makes Chandramukhi look like a flat-footed tortoise. Utterly uninhibited before the camera, her lack of physical inhibition and confidence in her sexuality make Bipasha Basu appear quite staid in comparison.
The supporting cast of friends, relatives, and hangers-on are clumsy and irritating. Why fill the peripheral spaces with so much noise of affected self-importance?
Nadeem-Shravan’s rhythm-driven ballads and dance numbers pound their flesh into the raunchy choreography. These are well juxtaposed against the free flow of melodramatic motivations. Andaaz represents a gradually emerging new-age family drama where the audience is treated to a bi-focal view from the waist and the heart. The mix may not appeal to the purists but seems to work fine with most of the audience who don’t mind the barrage of bosom as long as it’s underlined by reverent references to mother’s milk.
In an interview with Subhash K. Jha immediately after the success of Andaaz, Akshay Kumar wondered why the film was not being acknowledged as a hit by the film industry. “Everyone grumbles about the famine of hits. Why can’t we feel happy when a film finally does well? Instead, people ask, ‘Film giri ki nahin?’ Why wait for Andaaz or any other film to fall? Why not pray for everyone’s success? I am very hurt by the way Andaaz has been dismissed by my colleagues. I was hoping the film would succeed because it’s nice. But I never thought it would do so well. My profession is quite strange. Sometimes, the films we work really hard on do not succeed and the ones we just sleepwalk through become hits. But I believe hard work always pays. In any case, success was long due for the film industry. It will not change anything for me. I have never altered my price or working method about my hits or flops. I don’t intend to do so now.”
Akshay attributed the success of Andaaz to the explosive Lara-Priyanka combo. “It is responsible to a large extent because both of them have done a great job. They are very professional, hardworking, organised, and talented. The film could not be what it is without them. We shared wonderful times. We miss not meeting up nowadays. At least I miss the camaraderie during Andaaz. The shooting was over in just three months! We did not even realise when it started and when it ended. This is the fastest film Suneel Darshan has ever produced. The two girls did whatever the role demanded. Priyanka played a brash character, so she could not be seen in a sari all the time, could she? I don’t think there’s too much of a skin show in Andaaz. It’s more of a social drama and that’s what is attracting audiences. They love the last 35 minutes of Andaaz when the heroines turn out to be sisters-in-law. They have never seen anything like this before.”
