TAG: Giselle Monteiro TAG: Giselle Monteiro
**
Always Kabhi Kabhi (Always Sometimes).
Directed by Roshan Abbas. with Ali Fazal, Satyajeet Dubey, Zoya Morani and Giselle Monteiro.
At Nu Metro, Canal Walk.
Despite being backed by Red Chillies Entertainment, the production company owned by Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, and produced by his wife Gauri, Always Kabhi Kabhi is mediocre fare. Director Roshan Abbas must take the blame for a poor effort based on his original play, thwarting the brave attempts of his talented cast of newcomers who try their best to raise the quality of the production.
Abbas’s play was originally staged in 1999 and while he maintains that it has been updated through a screenplay aimed at today’s audiences, it seems very dated, with his uninspired direction not helping.
The coming-of-age story is a moral tale on the generation gap and revolves on a group of students who are trying to live up to their parents’ expectations and battling to make them realise that they want to follow their own paths in life. It is an oft-told tale, but one that will constantly bear repeating.
To make it appealing to audiences, though, Abbas needed to seriously update his approach as he fails to connect with his target market.
Some of the scenes are so implausibly filled with product placement that it seems like the film has stopped for a commercial break. An entire party scene is set up to promote a leading soft drink and does nothing to move the story forward.
On the plus side, the leads playing the young group of four friends do well with the uninspired material. The established actors ham it up at every opportunity, but in their defence, the characters they play are more like caricatures in the way that Abbas has created them.
Always Kabhi Kabhi focuses on important issues facing the youth, but as a result of poor direction, a dated approach to the writing and a ludicrous finale, it disappoints. One hopes that it does not damage the chances of the talented lead actors to move on to better prospects.