That’s how powerful their performances were; they transport you into one of those ‘˜melting the cockles of the heart’ phases and make you yearn for some shudh unadulterated romance.
That’s how powerful their performances were; they transport you into one of those ‘melting the cockles of the heart’ phases and make you yearn for some shudh unadulterated romance.
People who have read the book will notice that the original story hasn’t been tweaked, changed or played around with much except the addition of the songs.
Every character fit the role to a tee. Be it Ronit Roy as the frustrated alcoholic father or Revathi as the highly-strung South Indian mom; the story wouldn’t have had even half the edge without these seasoned actors. Amrita Singh manages to bring about just the right amount of flamboyance to her character and loudness to her pitch, as she steps into the shoes of a typical Punjabi mom. And Shiv Kumar Subramaniam impresses as the uptight, worn-out Ananya’s father – who loves to drink and have a good time, but hides under the façade of discipline and indifference.
Alia has a magical screen presence. Arjun falling head over heels in love with her wouldn’t look convincing if she didn’t charm with her effortless style and the street smart demeanour. She plays a chicken eating and beer guzzling Tam bram in the film. Whereas Arjun despite being a Punjabi ironically has this subtlety in his behaviour; and since he wants to become a writer in the movie, that soft reserved quality suits him just perfectly.
There are hardly any boring moments in the movie. When the two are not romancing, they are busy convincing each other’s parents in the film to let them tie the knot. The problems, the two love birds face because of frivolous caste and culture issues is the story of a lot of distressed couples out there. They play the victims of all that dramebaazi created by Indian parents pretty well.
There’s this one scene in the movie where Revathi (Ananya’s mom) who has a knack of singing, gets pursued by Krish to perform in one of his office functions. And while earnestly crooning classical Carnatic lines, she suddenly slips into the filmi musical mode and sings ‘saathiya tune kya kiya’ – which is a number from Love, her own film in which she starred opposite Salman Khan. The mini tribute was way too cool.
The transition from the campus life and the stale canteen food eating period to reaching the phase of being stuck-in-your-cubicles and going for lunches and dinners to la-di-da places just makes you relate to all of that.
Not very over-the-top, neither very out-and-out real, 2 States is just the delicious recipe for a light-hearted weekend watch…
