Subhash K Jha speaks on Pyaar Impossible

By Subhash K. Jha -

January 11, 2010 - 11:53 AM IST

Pair impossible? You bet! Uday Chopra as the geek in love and Priyanka Chopra as the unattainable self declared 10-on-10 beauty is a bit of a long shot.

Subhash K Jha speaks on Pyaar Impossible

But in films about the romance of the impossible, anything is possible. In the first fifteen minutes of the narrative Uday gawks sighs and grins goofily every time Priyanka passes by on the college campus. She's so hot, she could scald the film's frames if only the basic treatment was not so thanda.

We see Ms Chopra on roller-skates, on stage pounding a guitar, at the café gabbing with the boys...everywhere except in the classroom.

So who said anything about studies?

Soon Alisha (yup, that's her name) is back in India with a little daughter named Tanya who is the most annoying child-actor in recent times. When Uday Chopra masquerades as her nanny Tanya threatens, "I'll call the cops and tell them you're doing bad things to me."

Ahem ahem. The daughter's lines are written to sound cool. And the 7-year old girl mouths them as though she heard them all on television.

Most of the narrative unfolds in Alisha and her daughter's home where the Geek, still smitten after seven years, becomes the monstrously ill-behaved daughter's nanny.

The world outside this quaint and over-cute domestic scenario is inhabited by corporate types pounding away millions worth of deals on their sleek computers. The geek can only be sleek when he wants. But he's content in his placid cocoon. Who needs style when you have spectacles and braces?

It's a 'jingle' out there. The soundtrack is suffused with sounds that are so U-tube you want to squeeze the tune down the toilet. The single-mother as played by the excessively self-confident Priyanka Chopra seems well-equipped to cope with the quirks of the concrete jungle.

Turn on the heat, Baby. Coz Alisha is hotter. And she never lets us forget this.

Ms Chopra's character offers much room and potential for comment on today's working women, their effort to balance home with work. We had an interesting variation on this theme recently Yashraj Film' Rocket Singh Salesman Of The Year where Gauhar Khan was a woman struggling to keep her clothes on at her work place.

Priyanka's world in Pyaar Impossible seems strangely bereft of harassment. Her greatest stress is to find a nanny for her insufferable daughter. When that is in place she needs to treat her suave (but evil) suitor (played with a likeable glint by Dino Morea) to dinner at home.

That too is taken care of by her all-purpose nanny. The dinner sequence has the potential of being a laugh riot. Instead it just stretches on like acres of unkempt grass in need of a mower.

Most of the film replicates the over-studied rhythm of a sitcom about a smart working -class babe who can't see love (read: geeky nanny) staring down at her right inside her home.

Priyanka Chopra in a stunning new hair cut looks every inch her part. But would someone please explain why she needs to show her legs 24x7? Is there some kind of a hidden statement in her leggy presence?

Some of Priyanka's best scenes suffer from the actress' discernible over-confidence. Where is the vulnerable quality in this single mother's personality? In contrast Uday Chopra is understated gentle and in-character throughout. He knows the inner world of the geek.

Technically competent Pyaar Impossible is not a bad film. It's just a dull film.