Purani Jeans Movie Review !

• Director: Tanushri Chatrji Basu

  Starring: Tanuj Virwani, Aditya Seal, Izabelle Leite and Sarika

  Rating: 1.5 stars

  Today I understand the meaning of signs that The Alchemist once talked about. Sign 1- The 10 am show of Purani Jeans was cancelled because they hadn’t received the print.  

  Sign 2- The 12:30 pm show was cancelled because the projector had crashed.

  The world conspired to keep me away from the film but the stubborn me ended up watching the evening show. I should have followed the signs.

  The famous ad maker Tanushree-without-an-‘e’-in-Chattrji takes the world’s most ghisi-piti love triangle based in Kasuali. The poor intense guy loves the white, the very white but expressionless goat cheese, I mean the pretty girl. But the clothes-lending, party-throwing, London-returned best friend also loves the pretty girl. Oh ho, now what? So the intense guy must be poor but not sacrificial. He tries to tell the rich friend about their relationship but at a time when the rich brat is either drunk or sloshed out of his skull. Umm-hmm, bad timing!I know! Suddenly the poor guy goes for an interview and the rich guy helps the pretty girl’s younger sister through her abortion. Pyar kare badi behan, pregnant hoye choti behan? Kalyug I tell you! Stupid sub plot, don’t ask!    The pretty girl feels-ehsaan-ke-talah-burdened and is obliged to hug the rich boy exactly at the time when the poor boy makes an entry! (Close the door damn it!) This leads to the age old –I-won’t-let-you-talk-to-clear-out-any-misunderstandings scene between the poor guy and pretty girl.

  Poor guy- things have changed ever since I have been away.

  Pretty girl-nooo… but..I was just…

  Poor guy- STOP or else the story won’t move further. We can part only as friends.

  Pretty girl- But I love you..and …

  Poor guy- SHUT UP Biacth! We still have to torture audience for two more hours!! It’s okay. Anyway I can now fly to the US for further studies. I have kissed you once and it wasn’t as much fun!

  But only after a fraaanship-farewell song, the rains start lashing down, the friends hide in corners, the hormones start raging and jazbaat ki leh mein the poor guy-pretty girl start coochi-cooing in the shed. Guess who enters now? THE RICH GUY!?? Exactly!! BETRAYAL! He is pissed. No he is like really pissed. No no, you didn’t get it. He is so pissed that he commits suicide.

  So one of the suitors is dead, the other off to the US. So what happens to the girl? As she cleverly puts it- “when two best friends fall in love with the same girl, it’s the girl who always loses”. SOB SOB!! I cried buckets of tears into my popcorn turning them FIVE TIMES SALTIER!  

  The characterization in the movie is its strength. The rich boy is called SAM (Aditya-1200-likes-on-my-facebook-page-Seal). Since he is rich, we have to have unloving, unconcerned parents. Add more drama, let’s have them divorced. Ummm…a little more, the mother has a drinking habit. Not enough! We need to make it tragic. Let’s give her a second husband. We STILL need to evoke more sympathy for SAM. Let’s have the second husband have an extra marital affair. Bravo! Now Sam has a tough life. Tsk tsk tsk.

  Sam wants to be a musician, that’s why he returns from UK with ONLY, mind you, ONLY a guitar. Wah kya lagan hain ladke ki. He has by hearted the Wikipedia page on Jim Morrison and gets excited to attend a rock concert which in Kasauli equals to Mika paji singing Rock and Roll Munday. He even aspires to write his songs, sample one of his gems- “Purani Jeans, something something Yaaran…dheela padh gaya friendship ka naada.” IN-frigging-TENSE! He also inserts ‘man’ after all his sentences. Afterall ladka is phoren return bhai!

  The poor guy is Sid (Tanuj-tu-janta-nahi-Rati-Agnihotri-meri-mummy-hain-Virwani). Since he is financially deprived, he is always stooping, sometimes staggering too, like Rohit in Koi Mil Gaya. I so missed the Bournvita mug and Jaadu. How can you not have two when you are shooting in Kasauli? Chi.

  Then there is a gang of guys called- ‘K’ausali ‘C’owboys with which we witnessed the death of the term alliteration. The members of this gang have been borrowed from reality shows like MTV Roadies and Splits villa who insist on a fist-five in every three minutes. (After all that’s what 16 year old best friends do!) By the end of it I was so exasperated I wanted the fist-fives to miss and hit them on their faces! Argh.

  Then there is Sarika, Sam’s mother, who is usually drunk and is so unconcerned about his only son that she even misspells his name on his birthday card. But his name is SAM!! My two year old nephew can spell that.Dude that’s not unconcerned, that’s illiteracy! But she shows changes in her character. Towards the end of the film, she abandons liquor and is seen drinking coffee. Wah kya character growth hain! Pooh much, I mean, too much!!  

  To sum up in a line, Puranji Jeans has the oldest story with lackluster characters, half-baked emotions and terrible acting. I feel bad for the debutant director and actors but even worse for the viewers!