FILM ANALYSIS – VICKY DONOR

(Written on June 22, 2012)

I wasn’t too keen to see the flick but a couple of friends insisted that I should. It was supposed to be great and had been a big success at the box office. They loved the flick but after struggling to watch it, I didn’t.

I consider it a badly made film – loose (no-tension) plot, fake character transformations, playing cute for the heck of it, contrived situations, over-the-top cranky-&-saintly characters…

Obviously, Shoojit Sircar in love with Delhi and its people and Bollywood’s affection for Delhi lingo made Dilli-giri the focus. However, after a bit, it gets too tedious to watch.

Shanghai shines like gold before it even though I didn’t fancy the film; the multiple narrative tracks and the camera/editing style messed up the emotional impact. However, Shanghai was a pretty challenging story to tell and Banerjee put an effort. For sure. I can go and watch it again.

This one is one helluva drag; seems to me they wrote the script in 7-days. Looks like a lazy attempt. It does something for the sperm-donor subject, but give me a break if that makes it a good story told!

Of course, the world loved the characters and the lingo and made it a big hit. But boy…the story-telling sucks.

In some ways, it’s worrisome that it doesn’t matter much to the audience. Is it because they are so used to seeing the nonsense that even if something is done right, or they see something refreshing, they fall for it? What’s interesting is that many people I know, who are also exposed to ‘good’ cinema, also don’t register the poor execution. Perhaps they are too much in love with certain aspects – characters + lingo, in this case – and ignore the rest.

Vicky Donor suffers from not having an active protagonist. This implies that the goal that the protagonist will chase isn’t going to be driving the character and as such the stakes aren’t high. What this does for a story is that the characters are not compelling. They are made interesting courtesy their behavior, their lingo and whatever antics they may do.

Considering how folks love Delhi and it’s people on the screen – mainly their mannerisms, every other film based on Delhi, overdoes it. The same happened in Band Baaja Baraat. When the effort should have been in building conflict, the makers enjoyed what they witnessed – cute dialogues and fights, even if contrived and…kept going onwards with that.

Vicky Donor, story-wise doesn’t go anywhere. At all. Sure…it’s about sperm-donation. Sure they use humor to explain this subject that people would have felt repulsed with and that’s about the smart thing they did with respect to the story. It helps when they have actors who can be convincing in their over-the-top behavior.

However, one returns to the point – what’s the story about? And who is it about? Going by the actions the protagonist is Dr. Chaddha, not Vicky, though the story-teller sure want the guy to be at the forefront. It’s Dr. Chaddha who has a goal. Who has complications when Vicky goes off and Dr. Chaddha is the man, who gets him back and sets his world right.

In a way, it’s absolutely fine but when you focus the movie on Vicky and his family and his love life, then he should be driving the engine. Not just the sperms! The writer/director are clearly in love with the characters and settings and kept playing around the same.

It’s more of a documentary, though even good ones have rising tension. In this, there are just cute and supposedly-funny (which worked with the audience) dialogues exchanges between the family and Vicky. As for the love angle, it’s totally dry. There’s no logic for a banking girl to fall for a good-for-nothing guy. Well…one may say that can happen. Ok. But…how does a relationship evolve and grow and how the two interact? How the two fall in love? One guy pesters. The other one doesn’t respond and isn’t amused. Then a friend points out – he is cute and there you go. she starts to go around with the dude.

Some critics have loved the writing and the direction. Precisely two departments that falter massively. Lame dialogues. Worse is using the crutch of verbose to get a relationship going! There’s no concrete action. It’s all superfluous. And…the movie drags big time.

From another perspective, Vicky Donor sets or continues to set a dangerous precedent. A smart, educated girl falls for a guy who flirts and that’s it. All the reaction that happens, post their relationship getting serious, including marriage, tends to be a joke.

The writing/direction is lazy and they could have done a huge favor by working in hard on characters, their interaction, provided them with flaws, struggle and given convincing reasons on why the two matter to each other.

The inference. The girl is hot. The guy is a tapori. And there’s the best match!

I could even take-in such nonsense if the plot progresses forward, if the obstacles rise, but this is where the question arises: whose story is it? Dr. Chaddha is the guy who is running around but we now focus on the romance. Contrived and farcical, it takes the story nowhere.

What you get is Punju-Bengali issues dealt with humorously so as to be applauded by the audience. And this gets so contrived and character transformations happen over instant. One moment they hate each other. Next, they are loving ’em, for no rhyme or reason.

Vicky Donor is a very interesting film in Bollywood. Lauded for being a ‘fresh’ flick, with no star, concerned with ‘serious subject, it has become a big hit.

But what’s the learning – create loud, over-the-top characters, focus on jokes, almost like stand-up comics, show ’em cute, put some songs, show some emotions, it doesn’t matter if it’s fake, if the story is one-dimensional, just create an upbeat flick with some good tempo, bad fast-paced editing is fine, and have some music, get some Punju angle and stupid humor and…there you go!

Delhi’s best deal has been Khosla Ka Ghosla. Anyone seriously interested in screenwriting or film-making should study the two films side-by-side. It would be clear like the difference between heaven and hell that this one’s not a patch.

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