Purely Joyful Movie!

Don't Believe the Hype

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

I had heard terrible things about 'Chaahat Ek Nasha...' but I thought I'd give it a chance since it was a free opportunity to watch Manisha Koirala. It turned out to be better than what I had expected. It still is a bad movie but far from the worst. The direction and writing are quite poor. The dialogues are one cliché after another and the attempt at humour is pathetic. I liked the story angle of a fading superstar whose career rapidly tumbles down when she is replaced by a younger singer. Things turn worse when her manager boyfriend falls in love with the rival and decides to marry her. The story should have focused on the downfall of the fading star who once had everything and is now gradually losing it all. However, mindless subplots, such as the Rahul- Rashmi romance or the entire Sharad Kapoor track take the film to another direction and the last fifteen minutes are ridiculously bad.Manisha Koirala is terrific as Mallika. If there is any reason to watch 'Chaahat Ek Nasha...' it is for her. Her convincing portrayal of a confident, cheerful, kind-hearted singer who transforms to a sad, tormented and alcoholic almost has-been is very good. Aryan Vaid is wooden and Preeti Jhangiani is passable at best. The songs, with the exception of the engagement track, are forgettable. Under the hands of better writers and a better director, this could have been an interesting character-driven film but alas.

It's one of those Could have been films. The aim of the story was good. Execution is terrible and becomes a bad sleazy movie. This film could have been another Pyaasa, the Gurudutt movie. It's worth avoiding. A comment on the songs: some of the songs are actually good to listen. Manisha plays the role of a fading star. She is not interested in a marriage. Don't be mistaken that she wants to be a yogini, she does want to be in bed with the hero character Rahul. Thus, rahul is looking for another girl to marry. Rahul continues totell Manisha that she would continue to be his best friend. Thereby maligning what is known as friendship in the Indian world. Preethi character thinks that Manisha and Rahul are only friends in the usual sense and wants to get married to Rahul. This too after giving up herself to him! Funny characterisation indeed. Perhpas the scriptwriter had a drink while writing the script. Dialogues seems to have been written for every 10mts of the movie, otherwise he would have found the flaw in it.Though I don't believe that Indian sensibilities have changed, nevertheless these scriptwriters should be working for Hollywood movies. To avoid such scripts, they should at least see non-Hollywood movies.

I had extremely low expectations for this movie. However, the movie was turning out to be quite interesting. Manisha took on the role of the pop diva analogous to the 80s Madonna. The story becomes interesting as Manisha's popularity begins to sink and she loses the status of being India's pop culture icon. It is interesting to see how her whole world simultaneously comes crashing down. Her lack of ability to draw enormous crowds along with her break-up with Aryan tears her apart. It is nice to see how Manisha gathers up courage to protect Preeti, her new professional and romantic rival, from being used like she was by Aryan. However, the awful ending completely ruins the film! What was an admirable struggle for justice and self-respect ended in a disheartening act that shows hopelessness and weakness. Performances and songs are okay.