Wet untill dark

Tum Mile
Cast: Emraan Hashmi, Soha Ali Khan, Water Kumar
Director: Kunal Deshmukh
Rating: Three stars

Squawk. The wannapaint Picasso is facing an artist’s block. How he rumbles, bumbles, grumbles. Then flash! He sees his live-in girlfriend sitting sadly on the bed, our faces turn red, and heil M F Husain, the artist is ready with a canvas overnight. Right.
That’s a rather juvenile situation imagined for Tum Mile, or Love Story July 25 2005. Hang on though. To the immense credit of director Kunal Deshmukh, he shoots it with such sensitivity and grace, that you’re convinced that he’s an underrated director. Both Deshmukh and Mohit Suri (Woh Lamhe) from the Mahesh-Mukesh Bhatt factory are excellent technicians, and deserve to be in the A-list of mainstream directors. They know mise en scene, where to manoeuvre the camera at which point, when to cut, and why the lighting shouldn’t look as if life was a permanent wedding reception. Deshmukh made an auspicious beginning with Jannat which even clicked commercially. Cool?
Don’t know about cool but wet for sure. For his second foray into Emraan Hashmidom (including a couple of dainty mouth-to-mouth you-know-whats), Deshmukh opts for a subject that’s strangely reminiscent of plight of Jeff Goldblum-Margaret Colin -- an estranged couple who reunite on the brink of disaster -- in Independence Day.
In this case, the disaster is the monsoon fury evidenced by Mumbai over four years ago. So what?..you might ask. So plenty.
The outcome is two separate movies. One is about Hashmiji and Soha Ali Khan going gaga sa re gaga in Cape Town. He’s a waiter with a talent for repairing dilapidated chocolate cakes, and she’s wealthy enough to be on the Forbes richest list. Her dad’s Sachin Khedekar, who does not look like the Forbes type at all, but you let that pass. And anyway he fetches up only for a minute to admonish his daughter, “What is this live-in relationship all about? My generation was not like your generation..blah blooh bleeeeh.” Oh puh-lease.
More: Cake Man wants to bake paintings instead and Forbes girl who campaigns for a greener world. In that pursuit, they go through quite a few montage Pritam songs about love, heartache and break-up. They split only to meet up, then, in the first class cabin of an airplane.Very intelligently, Cake quizzes, “What are you doing on this plane?” Even more intelligently, she smiles, “Same as you are doing, going to Mumbai.” Rattled Cake asks the airhostess to shift him to the economy class (no way, she says, spoilsport!). Grrrr, he goes, downing a mini-Vat 69. And hey you thought that Scotch had vanished with the daze of Jeetendraji (trivia info: Jeetendraji danced among cut-outs of Vat 69 in Gunahon ka Devta…oh boy!).
Soon we’re on to the second film (two for the price of one, see) which is shot in a studio and also uses archival footage to recreate the monsoon devastation in Mumbai. While the first film or the heartistic section is scripted, shot and performed marvellously, the second one, is for want of a better word, sorry. Er..soggy.
Painstakingly crafted certainly but the special effects are pure cheddar (particularly a telegraph pole hitting a flooded road), and the ending is as predictable as X’mas in December. The nail-biting tension required for an aqualung caper, which even strives to be a micro-Titanic (check out a wall giving way to a whoosh of water), is conspicuous by its absence.
Technically, this effort arrives ironically in the same week as the gazillion-dollar-fuelled 2012. It’s evident that if popular cinema is to match FX with Hollywood, infinitely far more resources are needed and also a screenplay which doesn’t keep cutting between the past (Cape Town) and the present (Mumbai) as if it was desperately imitating Alain Resnais’ time jugglery.
That apart, there’s still decent value for money here , particularly for the manner in which cinematographer Prakash Kutty and director Deshmukh achieve a mellow, subdued look throughout. The dialogue is teasingly pepperminty. Pritam’s music score is one of his more dulcet ones, melodious and even elegiac as in Dil ibadat and Tu hi haqeeqat.
Of the cast, Soha Ali Khan tends to get overwrought occasionally but overall, she is likeable and watchable. Emraan Hashmi’s convincing despite the difficult role; he’s confident and in control. Supporting players are quite okey-dokey just like the rest of this Tum Gilay.
PS: (Synopses and notes located on websites for Tum Mile indicate that the character of Emraan Hashmi was called Ali Taha…in the movie the character is called Akshay..what happened?..why the change?..anyway..could be someone thought ‘Akshay’ is more amenable to the box-office..well?)