Fantastic holiday followed by disaster- Don2

I have been lazy for the past couple of weeks, been completely unproductive. I have had a block, a writer’s block. I have had plenty of ideas but none have translated into a post or that those elusive hundred pages of a book I have been trying to write. So it’s been frustrating and yet I have had the most amazing holidays in recent times. We switched off completely- no television or newspapers, no modern day elements to entertained save the magical night-time sky to keep us busy counting and identifying stars and the bonfire to keep us warm. Our three night stay at the foothills of Kodai was absolutely primitive in that sense. The all-pervading quiet of the property was like a balm to me and ideas flowed thick and fast but my fingers simply didn’t have the strength to hack away at the laptop. So I left it at that and I am still struggling to find words within me to carry in the plot of the book….until yesterday when Farhan Akhtar unleashed that fire in me!

I saw Don2 yesterday and the block lifted. I was simply bursting to post in the blog about what I didn’t like in the film. I have seen Don1 and when I see Priyanka look longingly at Don I can’t think as to what Messrs. Excel Entertainment were thinking when they planted the idea that Roma could have had feelings for the criminal who killed her sister, brother and brother-in law (is that correct?) in cold blood. Don is chatting conversationally with Roma to tell him about her ‘story’ with her cop colleague Arjan (it is Arjun actually but maybe Priyanka has been given a diktat to sound and look as artificial as possible, just like Sonam Kapoor in Aisha and to talk without making an ‘O’ of her lips) .

I understand the need to look glamorous but when a film-maker has Priyanka his job is in glamour department is DONE. Priyanka is glamorous; she has fantastic screen presence- check Aitraaz and the scene where she devours Akshay alive. It gave me the shivers. In Aitraaz she fit the part perfectly, but sometimes a filmmaker needs to work a little hard to make glamour look credible and she certainly doesn’t look the part of a police officer (and I find the director guilty) And what about Don aka. Shahrukh Khan? Many dialogues for Don start or end with ‘sweetheart’ and it doesn’t seem natural, it sounds grating, forced, and not effortless. And I truly wish the scriptwriter would have etched Roma’s role as the perfect foil for Don, in her single minded pursuit for vengeance. I would have enjoyed Don better if it were a vehicle for Roma as well. But her vengeance is not only forgotten, it is given a thorough kick in the rear by the director as we are treated to the Don’s verbal strut when he not only dares to suggest that Roma is in love with him but also has the arrogance to believe it and (here I kick myself on the rear) he has made his arch enemy gaze at him longingly, eyes dripping the forbidden and lips parted.

Oh my god! Where is the Farhan Akhtar of DCH?