Sex, Relationships and Urban Public Transport

Life in a Metro - Movie Review

The first few minutes of this movie you could be easily fooled into believing that extra-marital promiscuity for the sake of career advancement is the order of the day in suburban India and thats what the movie could be all about. But dont let the comedic phone conversations between Rahul (Sharman Joshi) and some of his senior co-workers fool you into this verdict so soon. The plot weaves intricately in and out of the lives of a handful of inter-connected couples bringing forth shades of reality that is Life in a Metro.

Rahul is a call centre employee who in his own words '15 hajaar kamaane ke liye 15 hajaar Americans ki gaaliya sunta hoo'. He is set on making it big in life and is willing to go all lengths to win the favor of his managers to rise through the ranks. One approach he uses to do this is to allow his seniors access to his apartment to make merry with their colleagues while he roams the streets in the middle of the night waiting for them to 'come out' (pun intended). His neighbors, in the meanwhile, are in awe of his sexual prowess, screamers keeping them awake late in the night. Rahul secretly admires his colleague Neha (Kangana Ranaut) who is sleeping with her boss Ranjeet (Kay Kay Menon). Ranjeet is married to Shikha (Shilpa Shetty) and they are at complete loggerheads, living a life of compromise for the sake of their 6 yr old daughter. Familial ties do not however stop Ranjeet from having a no strings attached, physical only relation with Neha in turn for granting her out of turn promotions and perks.

Shikha's sister Shruti (Konkona Sen) is a 30 yr old virgin, waiting desperately for the right one. She manages to meet a few off marriage portals but rejects each one for not being her type. Debu (Irrfan Khan) is one such reject whom she ends up working with and falling in love towards the end of the movie. Neha and Shruti are roommates and somewhere down the line Shruti finds out that Ranjeet is cheating on her sister. In the ensuing scene, Ranjeet asks to be forgiven for his liasons with Neha but turns the other way round when Shikha asks to be forgiven for her short fling with Akash (Shiney Ahuja), a struggling theatre actor whom she meets once a week while on her way to visiting her dance teacher Shivani (Nafisa Ali).

Along parallel tracks there is a love story between Amol (Dharmendra) and Shivani, Amol back to spend the last few years of his life with his true love. In all filmy glory, Shivani dies before Amol and you are left wondering why the hell this part of the story was roped in in the first place. There is also an unnecessary gay association in the movie where Shruti is fooled to believe that the man whom she swoons for also likes her but in reality the whole relation is an act to cover his gayness in front of his parents. Shruti later goes on to realise (I dont know how) that she is in love with Debu and Debu has to chase her on a horse all the way to the train station right out of his baraat to mend her broken heart. Neha realises that sleeping with Ranjeet can only get her so far and that is not what she wants in life right now. She jumps out of the car while traveling with Ranjeet and heads straight to find Rahul. Rahul is about to leave the city dejected for no love when he is runout just short of the crease train station by Kangana Run-out. In the end, all (alive) find what they want in life.

Kay Kay Menon's portrayal of the remorseless MCP is first rate while Shilpa not latching onto the lust train sounds a little too sati-savitri. Shiney Ahuja plays the loser once again. Irrfan Khan has been given some good dialogues and he makes a competent performance as a lecherous 38 year old. Konkona Sen dilly dallies between the man of her dreams and the man unknowingly present in her life. Kangana Ranaut manages to look beautiful but lacks 'dimensions' and one can only pity Kay Kay's character to cheat on the bodacious Shilpa for a fling with Kangana. Sharman Joshi plays the ambitious lad quite convincingly and has clearly come a long way since his Style and Excuse Me days. The rest are trivial additions to the lineup.

The most irritating part of the movie is when 3 unkempt, dishevelled singers break into a song. While the songs are appropriately placed, have meaningful lyrics and carry the movie forward, looking at the same 3 people over and over again kinda makes you wish you had a squiggly line in your eye. All said and done, the movie is definitely worth a watch, although you come out hoping this is not what life in a metro is truly becoming in the motherland.

Post Title : Sex, Lies and Videotape