Reviewed by Praveen Lulekar
‘Premsutra’ starts with Sania (Pallavi Subhash)
standing on a hill in Goa, looking down at the sea. The character, supposed to
be a Goan, Catholic (and by that effect – modern!), is dressed in skimpy
clothes and rides a masculine motorbike. This forcefully established character
interacts with her grandmother (the adorable Shubha Khote) in the next scene on
the topics of love, sex and marriage. Khote’s natural ease makes the conversation
candid but a panoramic wide-angle frame throws the speakers in convex corners.
The so called philosophy of the film is set in this awkward view – love, sex
and marriage are completely
different things.
The film sticks to the philosophy; we encounter the
three entities in completely ‘different’ situations – but between the same
persons. For modernity, the order in which they happen for the lead pair is not
necessarily conventional. As far as story is concerned, marriage happens
because of the sex as Sania gets pregnant.
Sania meets
the French-bearded, flowery shirt wearing Anand Joshi (Sandeep Kulkarni) who,
for some reason, is introduced as Andy. They have a one night stand and Sania
disappears. The film, in its pursuit of boldness, then stumbles into a Kal Ho Naa Ho-ish homosexual comic scene.
That is it for boldness; the further story is like an abridged TV serial. We
have a vamp (Shruti Marathe), her villain father (Shishir Sharma) and the
collapsing marriage of Sania and Anand. Add to that, evil games that the
negative characters play that somehow the positive characters pretend not to
understand till the end. Basically, it is a pity that the characters become
explicitly black or white.
The biggest let down are character graphs. Malvika
(Marathe) introduced as a flashy, rich dad’s spoilt daughter loses the bearing
in the second scene itself. Where each character is supposed to represent an
ideology, for Malvika sex is ‘love’ making or love itself. At least that’s what
she declares in her first scene. In her next scene the innocent girl turns into
an intense, jealous woman normally expressing her anger while she exercises.
The other lady (Subhash), very maturely, does not want to force Anand into any
commitment.
After marriage, the sensitive chick turns into a dominating wife.
Subhas’s beauty helps her cause a lot but her pronunciations – especially those
of English words – hurt the ears. Marathe fares well in that department.
The saving grace of the film is Kulkarni. Talking
about character graphs, a comparison is readily available for the ladies. That
he is in love with Sania after their first night, is so efficiently conveyed
through nuances that it comes as a pleasant surprise when he accepts it
verbally. His reactions when Sania aborts the baby (as a farce) are so lively
that you feel sorry for the character. And consequently for Kulkarni trapped in
a bad film! Another scene that stands out is the encounter between Malvika and
Sujit (Lokesh Gupte) – who represents the ‘I will marry for money and sex’
ideology. Amongst the positives, Pradeep Athawle (as Anand’s father) deserves a
special mention. His shrewd observations are well written and executed. But
these bits, like the melodious music, are too less and too far apart.
‘Premsutra’ is only modern or bold on the outer
layer; more precisely, in the initial stages. Once the pretence is over, it is
a tiresome wait for much expected twists to unfold.
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