Tamasha movie review : troubled minds

Imtiaz Ali has followed a pattern... He sees trouble in creating a 'normal' love story of opposition to love and the love that triumphs.. He has questioned love itself in many ways -- is it just happenstance and hence comfort in socha na tha or too casual to seem like love in Love Aaj Kal,  is it just naivete like Geet's love in Jab we Met , is it transformational like a source of life in Rockstar or is it too unattainable given my circumstances for Randeep Hooda in Highway...

In Tamasha , he explores isnt love an act , boy trying to impress girl by showing off a side that he isnt at times and then that return to mundaneness , a series of tick marks that society asks you to do in the guise of love... To showcase this he creates that fairy tale scenes in Corsica where two tourists Ved and Tara hide their true selves playing Don and Mona darling yet promising that they wont get physical or fall in love.. Although this 1 hr is enchanting locale wise and Ranbirs energy and Dipikas playfulness try hard , its really not Jab we mets train sequence or even the first half hr of love aaj kal..However we learn a bit more about Ved , his love for stories , his studying for the sake of it and hence need to be a different guy... However we dont know why Tara plays along ...

Now the heroines in Imtiaz Alis movies are  always rich, cocooned and want to escape especially rockstar and highway. In Highway the molestation by the uncle gave it strength..but usually Imtiaz usually leaves his heroines undeveloped... He lets the actress almost shape it with her personality... Here he does the biggest  disservice , Deepika as Tara is the driving character ..she falls in love with Ved after Corsica , chases him down, gets him, finds it too mundane and then still yearns and chases him back..breaking down at his feet to accept her.. The scene she breaks down is simply amazing showing what Deepika is now able to pull off... post Cocktail she is getting masterful at showing fragility despite a smart core.. She emerges as the heroine Imtiaz always wanted to create but he gives her a bad deal with poor development..

Enough heroine worship..Imtiaz loves troubled heros..His heros are commitment phobic( Saif's walk in the park in.Love Aaj Kal), burdened ( Shahid in Jab we met) , emotionally distraught ( Ranbir in Rockstar) , a petty struggler ( Randeep Hooda in Highway)...  in Tamasha he gives us the most troubled hero in Ved ...A guy trapped in the corporate world mouthing jargon to please customers exactly like what his current boss (vivek mushran in a delightful cameo), a guy forced to do engg by his father, living that perfectly boring life as a product manager.. In his heart he wants to be a story teller ( just like his childhood idol a part beggar part soothsayer Piyush Mishra who charges 10 Rs/hr) ... Piyush Mishra as powerful as ever is a guy despite having knowledge of greek, christian and indian mythology to draw comparisons lives a life of penury.. is that the fear Ved holds to not pursue his story telling dreams or is this Imtiaz's self reference or is his battle against corporatization of creativity.. Complex problems but not handled well.. Although when Ranbir finally becomes a story teller with modern craft the drama on stage is more entertaining than the movie..

This is why Tamasha is a half baked exploration of a muddled head. Despite Ranbir giving everything like he did in Rockstar, the drama in the head is not captured on screen...And this is an Imtiazism we know in Rockstar..

However there are some Imtiazisms that ring right.. the welcome song with Punjabi dhol is great pathos.. the epiphany moment with the auto rickshaw wala who is a nobody in delhi but used to sing well in Allahabad , and the song that follows...

For a movie called Tamasha with allusions to staging an act in a Shakespearan way , we wish it was far more well staged !