A glossier, sexier KKHH
20 Oct 2012 12:00 AM GMT
Once upon a time there was this perfect school called St Teresa’s. There two boys met as competitors, became best friends, turned their backs on each other to compete again and then parted to meet 10 years later. End of story.
Kids these days I tell you! They spell out abuses, call their Dean a ‘pansy’, show their middle fingers with as much flair as they show off their Ferraris. Lucky these school kids. The last we checked, we didn’t have the return of NSync like boys strutting their stuff on the field. Sad.
If you remember Kuch Kuch Hota Hai like it released last week — Student of the Year is a glossier, sexier, more testosterone driven than the Kajol-Shah Rukh-Rani sob story. Karan Johar gets two yummy boys on board. And yes, at the cost of sounding like a teenager, we will repeat — yummy. New comers Siddharth Malhotra as Abhimanyu and Varun Dhawan as Rohan steal the show away from Alia Bhatt and she clearly has no clue what hit her.
To put our fawning into perspective, SOTY is about the men. Let’s face it, Shanaya is not smart enough, neither is she a good dancer and nor can she win a triathlon! It is best she keeps her perfectly manicured hands off the business of winning the coveted trophy and sits in the stands cheering the men on. And that is what she does. Limited in expressions and acting caliber — Alia has little to do but to look pretty and deal with bimbette jokes from the very men she dates! What is with these school girls??!
Like every Karan Johar movie — SOTY is perfect. Perfect teachers, perfect friends, perfect sets, perfect clothes...whew! But the best part about the movie is perhaps the fact that even KJo seems to have come of age. The boys are sarcastic, the digs made are real world and perhaps the best scene is the confrontation of one drunk student and the Dean [Rishi Kapoor]. From the deft middle finger to the ‘pansy’ comment, the internal criticism of perhaps every moral lesson KJo has ever encashed on — SOTY in its own way undercuts it all.
The kids don’t exactly love their parents in SOTY. The parent-child relationships can be best described as strained, painful and quite a baggage on these pretty heads. In fact, Rohan’s father [Ram Kapoor] pretty much hopes his son loses the trophy of the year to his bestfriend-turned-foe — Abhimanyu. It is no longer about loving your parents anymore. Thankfully. And in another good turn of events for this filmmaker — he explores the dark sides of all relationships. Jealousy even in best friends come out pretty convincingly despite the designed perfection. Kids can be very bitchy! Did you know?
Siddharth and Varun carry the movie on their shoulders. They run, dance, dribble the ball as perfectly a KJo would allow it. They emerge out of the sea in sexy washboard abs perfection and have the girls saying kukkad kamal da. Oh well. The boys have potential — you have to give it to them!
Rishi Kapoor as the gay Dean Yogi Vaishisht is an absolute delight. Farida Jalal as Abhimanyu’s grandmother lights up the screen in the few scenes she has. And there’s a little of Boman Irani too.
SOTY is a feel-good film. Don’t look for logic, it is an unfair trial for KJo. Gloss is good and no one knows gloss better than KJo.
Kids these days I tell you! They spell out abuses, call their Dean a ‘pansy’, show their middle fingers with as much flair as they show off their Ferraris. Lucky these school kids. The last we checked, we didn’t have the return of NSync like boys strutting their stuff on the field. Sad.
If you remember Kuch Kuch Hota Hai like it released last week — Student of the Year is a glossier, sexier, more testosterone driven than the Kajol-Shah Rukh-Rani sob story. Karan Johar gets two yummy boys on board. And yes, at the cost of sounding like a teenager, we will repeat — yummy. New comers Siddharth Malhotra as Abhimanyu and Varun Dhawan as Rohan steal the show away from Alia Bhatt and she clearly has no clue what hit her.
To put our fawning into perspective, SOTY is about the men. Let’s face it, Shanaya is not smart enough, neither is she a good dancer and nor can she win a triathlon! It is best she keeps her perfectly manicured hands off the business of winning the coveted trophy and sits in the stands cheering the men on. And that is what she does. Limited in expressions and acting caliber — Alia has little to do but to look pretty and deal with bimbette jokes from the very men she dates! What is with these school girls??!
Like every Karan Johar movie — SOTY is perfect. Perfect teachers, perfect friends, perfect sets, perfect clothes...whew! But the best part about the movie is perhaps the fact that even KJo seems to have come of age. The boys are sarcastic, the digs made are real world and perhaps the best scene is the confrontation of one drunk student and the Dean [Rishi Kapoor]. From the deft middle finger to the ‘pansy’ comment, the internal criticism of perhaps every moral lesson KJo has ever encashed on — SOTY in its own way undercuts it all.
The kids don’t exactly love their parents in SOTY. The parent-child relationships can be best described as strained, painful and quite a baggage on these pretty heads. In fact, Rohan’s father [Ram Kapoor] pretty much hopes his son loses the trophy of the year to his bestfriend-turned-foe — Abhimanyu. It is no longer about loving your parents anymore. Thankfully. And in another good turn of events for this filmmaker — he explores the dark sides of all relationships. Jealousy even in best friends come out pretty convincingly despite the designed perfection. Kids can be very bitchy! Did you know?
Siddharth and Varun carry the movie on their shoulders. They run, dance, dribble the ball as perfectly a KJo would allow it. They emerge out of the sea in sexy washboard abs perfection and have the girls saying kukkad kamal da. Oh well. The boys have potential — you have to give it to them!
Rishi Kapoor as the gay Dean Yogi Vaishisht is an absolute delight. Farida Jalal as Abhimanyu’s grandmother lights up the screen in the few scenes she has. And there’s a little of Boman Irani too.
SOTY is a feel-good film. Don’t look for logic, it is an unfair trial for KJo. Gloss is good and no one knows gloss better than KJo.
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