Yeh Dillagi
Director: Naresh Malhotra
Year: 1994
Duration: 155 minutes
Music: Dilip & Sameer
Sen
Rating: 6.0
What could be better
than a Bollywood remake of the classic film, Sabrina starring Audrey Hepburn
and Humphrey Bogart? Well. probably quite a few things actually but at least
they make this romance age appropriate. Poor Audrey kept getting stuck with
much older men - Bogart, Gary Cooper, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire and Rex Harrison.
I wonder why? The three main actors in this one are Kajol, Akshay Kumar and
Saif Ali Khan - all huge stars in Bollywood - but still not quite Bogart,
Hepburn and Holden. But in this film's favor, we get a lot of musical
numbers, a good sock-em-up fight, heaps of brotherly love, a solid dose of
silly comedy and enough melodrama to sink a battleship. Not so favorable
is a scene that is comic homophobic.
If anyone in Bollywood had to take the
role of Hepburn, there was no one more suited than Kajol. She came from one
of those prominent Filmi families where all her cousins and her mother were
in the business and she began as a teenager. This was only her third film,
but she already had the charm and personality that a year later would make
her a huge star with Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge. Kajol was one of the main
reasons I got into Bollywood films. It is impossible to resist her. Bollywood's
sweetheart. Her looks are not classic beauty for Bollywood - she has eyebrows
that look like they want to run away and star in their own movie, a nose that
is slightly too large for her face and she doesn't come close to having any
sex appeal, but everyone fell in love with her back then. And her two male
co-stars don't get much bigger in Bollywood - and they are both still starring
in films 30 years later. Like every film industry, the men can keep going
for decades long after the women have had to retire or go into mother roles.
I have not seen Sabrina in ages but as
best as I can recall, this follows it close enough for a horse race. Sapna
(Kajol) is the daughter of the family chauffer. The family is very wealthy,
owns various businesses and is basically run by the older son Vijay (Akshay)
while the younger son Vicky (Saif Ali Khan) is a lay-about - spending all
his time romancing girls and avoiding work and responsibility. Sapna saves
his skin one time by pretending to be the girl in the room when a brother
comes along to beat up Vicky. For that he gives her 100 rupees to buy an
ice-cream cone.
This so pisses her off that she sabotages
a few dates of his and when Vijay tells her to cool it, she goes fuck you
- or thereabouts - and moves to Bombay. In no time she becomes a successful
model making good money and decides it is time to go back home in Simla to
see dad and to stand up to this family that only sees her as a servant's daughter.
Both brothers naturally fall in love with her feisty independence and melodrama
oozes out like toothpaste - slowly and sticky. A number of songs and a couple
that are quite good. I have not watched Kajol in years and it was nice being
reminded why I had such a crush on her in my early Bollywood days.
