Luck by Chance

The moment that best explains the core of Luck by Chance comes from the Karan Johar character (played by Karan Johar!) – explaining how first timers get to have a go at a career and life in Bollywood. He counsels how when established stars-actors like Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) refuse a role they think goes against their popular ‘image’, the role travels down to a newcomer (here, Vikram Jaisingh, played by Farhan Akhtar).

The first half of the film is used principally to set up the ‘intermission’ scene where Vikram, a rank outsider to Bollywood bags the lead role in an upcoming film albeit fitting in as one of the many pieces of a puzzle that needs to get in place to allow a film (or ‘property’ as they are now called) to get made. In the first half, a wide variety of elements are explored in what can be called a Bollywood collage, from training at dodgy acting schools, to an army of struggling actors appearing for one audition call, to prevalence & acceptance of casting couch, to old and new methods of film financing that in the end have made little difference to how Bollywood worked in the past (star-obsessed) and functions at present (still star-obsessed). As a drama, the film moves more assuredly once Vikram gets the lead role and the shoot begins to roll in the second half. The film poignantly ends at the start of Vikram’s journey in Bollywood and the end of another aspirant, Sona Mishra’s (Konkona Sen Sharma). I am not in two minds over Zoya Akhtar’s debut film which is both self-assured and honest.

But there are things that I liked more in the film and things that I liked a little less. I liked Farhan Akhtar in the lead who gives a confident yet understated performance. I also liked the contrast in the casting choice of Konkona Sen Sharma in the role a strong-willed, struggling starlet, Sona Mishra, and, Isha Sharvani, as the prancing star daughter who’ll be granted a short cut route to celebrity status. I liked less that Sona Mishra’s story fades away in the second half to appear only towards the end. I really liked the overbearing, blow-hot-blow-cold-as-the-need-be producer, Rolly, played marvelously by Rishi Kapoor. I liked less the briefness of the built up of romance that Sona has with Vikram, undermining the betrayal she suffers in the end. I particularly liked the maneuverings Vikram indulges in to climb the Bollywood ladder. I liked less that they were done in very muted manner. I liked how the old star, Nina Walia (Dimple Kapadia, in good form) eyed Vikram for some romance-on-the-side and that there lay a full potential for Vikram to juggle between three love interests. I liked less that all that remained of this multi-angle love was a tepid “scandalous” report that came out in a film magazine. I liked the various insights put together in the ‘Bollywood collage’. I missed display of ironies that situations such as Sona sitting opposite her brand new & empty refrigerator provided. I liked the camera work (Carlos Catalan) as the opening credits rolled where a montage of shots summed up well and with taste the working days and nights of Bombay cinema. I liked less when it kept becoming functional and nowhere as lyrical as the start of the film alluded to. I liked the details the art director (TP Abid) brought to the sets and missed them when the film moves outdoors where scenes became somewhat bare and bland. I liked the magic realism touch to the circus song that Zafar (Hrithik Roshan) appears in. I liked less the fact that the song was not significant to the film’s narrative. I liked Zafar where he seems not too happy when street children call out and rush at him while he is waiting at a traffic signal but then slowly warms up to the children as they hang outside the tinted window of his plush SUV. I liked less Anurag Kashyap’s appearance as the struggling writer who needed a project going at whatever cost because the irony of an intellectually superior writer versus the crassness of money bags was lost as his more chic looking producers and stars had their way and got away with it. I liked Karan Johar nailing it with his observation on workings of Bollywood. I was a little irked when Shahrukh Khan advises Vikram, ‘keep your old friends next to you as they will always tell you the truth and keep you grounded’. Then pointing to people who looked like his bodyguards, Shahrukh goes, ‘you see they were my school friends’. It sounded like don’t lose these friends because they would make you look & feel better about yourself and will be of some use to YOU. But then I liked the stand Sona takes in the end and moves on with her life. I also liked Sona’s ‘goodbye wave’ to Vikram’s cut out across the road while she uncomplainingly took the path she chose for herself.