Mirzya~ Much ado about folk tale, rajput kings and Shakespeare.

 

Best Dialogue-

"होता है अक्सर होता है
इश्क़ में अक्सर होता है

चोट कहीं लगती है जा कर
ज़ख्म कहीं पर होता है"

Budget- 50 Crores approximately

After watching the promos, I never had any great expectations from Mirzya but I hoped for a decent story as the director has given us epic films like Rang De Basanti and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in the past.

Like Rang De Basanti the story is shown in two timeframes.

The film starts with Om Puri heating an iron rod on a furnace and saying, "Ye loharon ki basti hai, ye basti hai loharon ki." The film then moves to an ethereal and timeless world of blue skies, snow covered mountains and beautiful landscape. The scene is so grand that when Saiyami Kher makes her entry in some ancient dress and winged eyeliner her beauty fades in front of the nature. Harshvardhan Kapoor makes his entry with his face half covered in a facial armour and right from the first scene he has no star charisma or on-screen presence.

The film then moves to the present time, which according to me was quite a surreal world as the characters have no reason behind their actions. They have no depth and unintentionally come out as selfish creatures.

The director keeps taking us back and forth between these ethereal and surreal worlds, which instead of simplifying the story, just adds to the confusion galore.

The most peculiar thing about the film is that while showing the love story of Mirzya and Sahiba, set in ancient times, not a single dialogue was used. We had to guess the story from the newcomers' expressionless faces while Daler Mehendi wailed in the background.

Instead of a timeless romance which was the director's dream it looked more like a Broadway musical sans glamour.

Talking of debuts this is the worst debut for both Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher.

Harshvardhan Kapoor looked shabby and untidy throughout the film. In few scenes he was made to take off his shirt which did nothing for him as he had neither packs or biceps to show off. His dialogue delivery was bad and there was hardly any chemistry between him and the leading lady.
It's good that he has signed another film before Mirzya's release. Maybe director Vikramaditya Motwane manages to tap Harsh's true potential in his dream project, "Bhavesh Joshi" which is about a Gujarati boy blessed with superpowers.

Saiyami Kher looked like a dusky beauty modelling for saris and jewellery in most of the scenes. Her dialogue delivery was bad and when she had to express through her eyes she failed miserably.

There was a group of dancers who came every now and then to dance to the songs being played to add a dash of  colour to the otherwise dark film. To be honest the male and female dancers had more chemistry in between them than the lead love birds.

The director has paid so much attention to the landscape, the dresses of the dancers, the grand palace and horses that he forgot to add any intensity to the love story. The result is that we just keep hoping for the wow moments the promos tantalize us with, but they never come and the film ends on a mundane note.

The film was released in 1700 screens but because of negative reviews the film got a poor opening of  1.75 Crores.

In a line, in his mind the director must have envisioned an epic romance but he failed to turn that dream into reality.

Highly Avoidable.