Luckily I had this Favorite Button on my rather dull looking TV remote which rarely failed in getting me something worth watchful. Of late my Regular browsing which would start from Star-Movies to my latest addition NDTV-Lumiere, had been replaced with a comparatively time saving Program-Filter and there I got ‘Rain Coat’. It was Sharp eleven PM, and with sleepy eyes, I saw some unusually fashioned titles of the movie unveiling. ‘Player :Aiswarya, Player : Ajay Devgan; Author & Direction :Rituparno Gosh’ and naturally I was hooked.
After couple of hours, two cigarettes and a pack of chocolates, I was bit shaken. A very famous O.Henry Story('Gift of Magi') beautifully retold in an Indian style with a decent performance from both the leads and it was indeed a feast to watch.
Melodrama concealed in the last scene was spoiled for me as I knew it was coming; thanks to my mate whose gender happened to have got this nasty hobby of plot-spoiling-narrations to their buddies, of the movies they see and the books they read. Still, I did not feel that I missed it. The Journey was beautiful and there was no specific destination after all.
It left me with a chain of thoughts for a while, wondering on the mysteries of this man-woman relationship. Though it was told a million times, there is still something new in it. Is it because the relationships itself tend to be something mysterious at times? Sometimes Love grows beyond the hormones, brain, social setups, and sometimes it grows beyond love itself, mystifying it again to a more complex level. May be this has to be felt and can’t be told. May be this is where the old saying gets its true meaning; “Loved and lost is better than never loved at all”.
Ghosh has done it well. Photography was good though it was not outstanding or even looked bit unnatural at times. Sound was pretty good though I can recollect one instance in the movie where when this woman steps in to the bath room and comes out continuing a conversation and the sudden cut in the volume-change in the voice was felt much unnatural but most of the time it was really good.When it comes to the acting performance, Annu Kapoor and Mauli Ganguly have done their part very well. Especially Mauli had a tough job of expressing something which she was not supposed to express.Devgan and Aishwary were good but many times one would wish if she did not have this burden of glamour on her shoulders.
Ghosh was careful in keeping the serenity of the story from falling into the not-so-beautiful ghettos of adulterous lust in Sheela’s Interactions with Manoj, still maintaining her wild intentions clear giving a different dimension to the relationships, which was felt more intriguing. It is on the edge but never actually slips maintaining the equilibrium keeping the viewers focused to the main stream.
The best part of the story is, here we don’t have this regular set of clichéd Indian romantic Pairs. They love each other, but at least one of them was greedier to be secured in life ruling out all possibilities of those Bollywood styled sacrifices for the cause of love, failing to earn the regular viewer’s sympathy for that matter. Later when they meet after many years, they both struggle hard to do this art of ‘make believing’ of their luxurious comforts, to each other, unknowingly unleashing the fantasies of their shattered hedonic dreams. This is what really making this movie very watchful. The black humor hidden in these grief woven scenes was felt very touchy.
Rain coat is highly advisable to all those who enjoyed the monsoon of love and got drenched heavily when it rained tears in some of those unpleasant days.
