Daily News & Analysis

Mumbai, Nov 5: The biggest strength of JP Dutta’s Umrao Jaan, based on Mirza Ruswa’s novel Umrao Jaan Ada, is its moving story. While there have been countless films on the golden-hearted prostitute, much of this  story’s appeal is that it is the tragedy of a woman waylaid by fate, set in genteel 19th century Lucknow, steeped in tehzeeb, ghazals, minarets, chandeliered kothis and star-crossed love  stories.

But takhliya, you carpers who look for “authenticity”; this film has Suniel Shetty play a 19th century daku with a taste for hazel-coloured lenses to set off his kajra’d eyes. Fair enough, since Aishwarya Rai as Umrao Jaan herself is pretty bejewelled, bekohl’d, besilken’d and beladen.

Certainly it is unfair to compare it to Muzaffar Ali’s exquisite and moving Umrao Jaan of 1981, and Dutta says his film is not a remake of the film but an interpretation of the novel. The trouble is, he does a Bhansali.

He brings a modern opulence to a period film, and only post-interval is  art director Bijon Dasgupta  allowed to show any dust or age in the Lucknow’s magnificent buildings. Essentially this film is a vehicle for Aishwarya Rai; everyone else flits in and out of her life, with Abhishek Bachchan lingering a little longer than the others.

Certainly, Ash is ravishing to look at, and Subhanallah-worthy in some of the dances. But being an Ash-vehicle, it must necessarily be a film of averted kisses. Even for a tawaif, whenever Aishwarya kisses, the camera loyally leaps behind her long tresses or hungrily closes in on her palms crushing the sheets, to stand in for passion.

Although the film is told in flashback, with an ageing Umrao Jaan relating her story to the author Ruswa (which the novel employs), you never see Aishwarya age. The camera cleverly remains discreetly behind a screen, though she does make one concession: in one final scene, she wears no make-up. Bravo! But all along the melodramatic moments allow her plenty of play in the nostril-flaring school of acting.

The story is of a young girl Amiran, who is abducted and sold to a kothi by Dilawar Khan, who has a grudge against her father. She is renamed Umrao by Khanum Sahib (Shabana Azmi, feisty as the hookah-smoking, brothel madam).

Umrao Jaan has many admirers including Nawab Sultan (Abhishek Bachchan), Gohar Mirza and others, but she’s besotted by the Nawab saheb. Nawab’s dad disowns him for having an affair with a tawaif. Now a pauper, he spurns Umrao’s ‘pity.’ When Umrao dallies with Nawab Faiz Ali (Hazel Shetty) and finds he’s a daku, there’s a final showdown with Nawab Sultan, who accuses her of bewafai and marries a nawab’s daughter.

Broken, Umrao returns to her family which spurns her for being a tawaif, and stages a final, bitter mujra. At last, she even forgives Dilawar Khan, who had abducted her and set off her tragedy—she has spent her life forgiving those who have betrayed her.

The film is far too long and strains your patience with one cloying ghazal after the next. 

You do feel sorry for Umrao Jaan, but you don’t carry her tragedy in your heart when you leave. Abhishek is competent, but likewise, is not memorable. The cinematography is quite good, but Anu Malik’s music is okay . And just when you are relishing the pleasures of Urdu, Abhishek, our 19th century nawab, goes “Tch! Shee!” when Umrao Jaan suggests his father may forgive him. Oh dear! Go for the beauty of the story and settings, but don’t expect too much.