Subhash K. Jha speaks about Love U…Mr. Kalaakar

Tch tch. Boy is an artiste. He is humble, generous, kind and compassionate. But what the heck! He can’t keep his sweetheart in the lap of luxury. Girl’s Dad makes the Kalaakar, a cartoonist with a penchant for looking for warmth and humour in every cliché if life, an offer he can’t refuse. "Join my family business; prove yourself as a profiteer and you can have my daughter’s hand." This, then, is the old-as-the-hills love story into which Tusshar Kapoor and Amrita Rao are thrown together. To their credit the pair gets into the mellow mood of the old-fashioned romance almost as though they’ve grown up watching the Collected Works Of Sooraj Barjatya. Having read some of the savage and dismissive reviews of this film, I am quite surprised to encounter a film which is innocuous and sweet, uncluttered and unassuming in its intentions. Neatly scripted it could do with some trimming in the last 45 minutes of playing-time.

However director S. Manasvi succeeds in infusing an even rhythm to the proceedings. It is Harindranath Chattopadhyay who said, "It’s very difficult to be simple." It takes a lot of guts to make a film as simple, honest and transparent as Love U…Mr Kalaakar in this day and age when Munni and Sheila are happily letting it all hang out and. And Ragini’s love is lost in the lust and greed of an MMS mess. Love U…Mr Kalaakar has a quaint old world charm to it. It doesn’t try to be anything but a story of love and trust set against the corporate kingdom. The dialogues though adhering to the film’s ‘filmy’ manoeuvres are at times enormously moving. Tusshar and Amrita Rao convey a great deal of unalloyed charm in their collaborative romance. While Tusshar has recently found his niche as an actor one wonders why Amrita Rao has not found a place under the sun yet. The film gets a dash of added credibility from Ram Kapoor in the stereotypical part of the heroine’s disapproving father. Kapoor infuses a part belonging to Madan Puri and Pinchoo Kapoor with heart. And the Phool Aur Kaante girl Madhoo has now matured into playing the leading lady’s aunt. And a dapper glamorous and sexy aunt at that. One wishes Madhoo had not packed in so many expressions in every shot. Maybe she was making up for lost time in a film that doesn’t try to live up to definitions of contemporary cinematic entertainment. Love U…Mr Kalaakar is just happy being itself. No hang-ups about its lack of innovativeness.