Shriram Iyengar
Mumbai, 27 Oct 2017 10:40 IST
Howard Rosemeyer's film has all the elements of a typical sappy drama, except that they are meshed together unconvincingly and to damaging effect.
Among the few good things about Howard Rosemeyer's Jia Aur Jia is that it is 90 minutes long. The short duration is one of the few blessings afforded to the audience of this very sappy, messily put together film that fails to offer anything to the viewer.
Rosemeyer, who has choreographed for films like Parineeta and another dud, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag, delivers a film that might have made for a great travel blog if he had just kept out the melodrama.
The film begins with Jia Venkatram (Richa Chadha) and Jia Garewal (Kalki Koechlin) setting out on a budget trip to Sweden. [Cue: a chance to plug in sponsors like Paytm]. At least the production costs were minimised to a great extent, considering the travel subsidy by the Sweden tourism ministry and the sponsors.
The two Jias are as far apart in temperament as they come. While Jia Garewal is the dreaming, carefree, mischievous hippy, Venkatram is the uptight, introvert who is struggling with her own secrets.
On a night in Sweden, the two come across Vasu (Arslan Goni), the only drunk Indian in the city, where people apparently stop living after 6 pm. Once he has filched their packet of cigarettes, Vasu quickly becomes a part of the duo's journey. If you have questions about safety and security, you would be well warned not to use as much logic. At any point in the film.
The film is a haphazardly put together script that comes across as half-baked and accidentally comic. Rosemeyer has used several themes from popular Hindi cinema tropes — terminal illness, attraction of opposites, the lonely wanderer — but the way the script brings them together is amateurish.
As for the travel element, there are some good shots of the shopping districts of Sweden, and naming of unfortunate cities like Lund, that ensure the nominal presence for the sponsors. The music does not help relieve the audience either, except for the song 'Na Jaana'. However, it plays for too short a time before the viewer is plunged headfirst into the icy film again.
As far as the acting goes, Koechlin plays the bohemian, hippy living her life to the fullest quite well. There are moments of hilarity in the conversations that have some very quotable lines. But the stretchy screenplay makes the character seem irritating. Chadha plays the reserved, mature Jia with ease, but the forced melodrama in the scenes come across quite poorly. Goni delivers the necessary overacting that completes the disaster. Though it would be tough to blame the actors for this script.
Rosemeyer's direction adds nothing to the story. But to be fair, it takes nothing away from it either. That's not really a good thing when it comes to a poorly written film. The direction is absolutely plain, not even the camera seeks to surprise the audience. Rosemeyer's film is a cocktail of ideas, but put together in a manner that might only satisfy an alcoholic with no reverence for the taste and quality of the drink.