Tamasha

A comment had been made about Bollywood, of indeterminate origins, that today’s stars are not men and women, they are boys and girls. If the spring of life is extended to age 50 and beyond, it follows that adolescence goes into the thirties. Which explains why the thirtysomething virgin lead pair (Ranbir Kapoor-Deepika Padukone) in Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha are having a gap year in Corsica (beautifully shot). They are yet to experience existential angst, so the boy/man decides: why get into reality at all, why not get pretend identities? So he becomes Don doing Dev Anand impersonations, and she sexy Mona Darling (whose faux slutty speech is bleeped out by the censors). They have a good time—no touching, we are Indian—and go back to their mundane real lives. For four years, Tara pines for him and finally traces him. But he is not Don (it would be worrisome if he were), but a boring product manager, Ved, whose robotic lifestyle baffles Tara. In Ali’s either/or world, a corporate drudge cannot be a fun-loving person outside office hours, because he has Daddy issues. He was forced to study engineering when he wanted to do theatre (3 Idiots revisited). Tara, who abhors the rat race and was attracted to the wildness of Don, sees no irony in being a power-suited marketing person herself. Since the story is from Ved’s point of view, the audience never gets to understand where Tara’s Mona Darling-ness went after Corsica. Still, going by the iffy standards of successful mainstream Hindi films, Tamasha has stars who dazzle with their performances even in half-baked