Given that young romances with their cliches were getting deemed dated as a Bollywood genre — Saiyaara is by no means a forgettable film.
Ahaan Panday and Aneet Padda in Saiyaara
Saiyaara
U/A: Romance
Dir: Mohit Suri
Cast: Ahaan Panday, Aneet Padda
Rating: 3/5
Right with his opening sequence, the young, debutant hero here takes on nepotism, rather head-on.
Nepotism being the largely Bollywood term now, which means networking everywhere else. Hero barges into the office of a pop-culture website, Buzzlist; whacks the hell out of its music reviewer. Why?
Because that critic, in an album review, chooses not to name the hero at all, while he’s the lead vocalist. The reviewer mentions a nondescript member of the band instead, because that bloke is well-connected.
The hero teaches a lesson or two on the media’s fixation with nepotist kids — covering their airport looks, et al — wholly ignoring the more deserving talents, in their place.
In a sense, this is a story about credit in popular arts. As in, how much you get paid is often directly proportional to the credit, including ownership rights, that you’re willing to abandon.
It should appeal to a lot of people, even in mainstream Bollywood. Who, at a certain stage in their careers, have inevitably been happy to deliver anonymously as ghost writers, composers, lyricists, etc. So long as they’re suitably remunerated for their anonymity.
At its juicy core, though, this is a true-blue, young, traditional Bollywood romance — the sorts that have launched movie-star careers. And, I suppose, must continue to.
How else to best connect with a new couple on the big screen than to gauge how they deeply feel for each other — for the audience to feel the same for their film.
Pain and tragedy are usually siblings of such a romance, with music — particularly dard-bhare songs/lyrics — as the effective medium to express melancholy.
What else are the common tropes? Plenty of boxes aesthetically checked here.
Along with the bewda baap (drunk dad), the hero, for instance, is inevitably blessed with a selfless dost (friend). In this case, the boy’s Alam Khan, from a similar role in popular Gen Z web-drama, Kota Factory (2019-21).
The film’s title itself is often derived from the lyrics of a popular Bollywood number. Saiyaara is a track from the Yash Raj Films’ (YRF) romantic thriller, Ek Tha Tiger (2012), starring Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif.
YRF, OG producers of Bollywood romances, is the studio backing this film.
What does Saiyaara really mean? Literally, in Urdu, a wandering star. As a line in this film explains, “Woh taara jo ek jagah pe na thehre, par apni chaal na badle…” Consistently travelling, without losing themselves along the way!
The untested stars, as in leads of this film, are Ahaan Panday, 27, and Aneet Padda, 23. God knows, Bollywood, with its own geriatric crisis for almost three decades, could do with strong 20-something talents, headlining films for the young, that are about the young.
What to make of Panday and Padda, then? I think it works the same way, when we meet someone new — sometimes, we tend to compare them with those we already know.
In the sense of, firstly, how they look, and if they remind you of someone.
If I were to create Padda on AI, assigning attributes, I might end up prompting Radhikka Madan for the look, perhaps, with a touch of Ananya Panday, and the vibe of Aditi Rao Hydari.
There’s even a shot of hers in the film, with just the upper half of her face that possibly looks like Alia Bhatt. That said, as an actor, she comes across suitably soft on the screen, with a mind and presence of her own.
The same can be said for the muscular, masculine, relatively relaxed and restrained Panday.
I guess, because he plays a tanned vocalist with timbre for ballads, and the beard in place — I just imagined Atif Aslam, who incidentally, debuted in Bollywood with the cracker number Woh Lamhein Woh Baatein, at 19, in Mohit Suri’s Zeher (2005).
Saiyaara is another full-on musical by Suri, whose entire body of work is likely to be remembered for its soundtracks alone (I’m told, 50/70 superhit songs). It’s hard to tell which track in this album, each shot like a dream, is likely to be hummed forever.
The way people, or at least I still hum, Sunn Raha Hai (from Suri’s Aashiqui 2; 2013). But even more so, the title track from Suri’s Hamari Adhuri Kahani (2015).
Those songs mostly grow on you like earworms, since you can’t subsequently escape them, wherever you go, anyway!
That’s unlike Anurag Basu’s Metro...In Dino, from a couple of weeks ago, where you instantly hummed Pritam’s Qayde Se or Aur Mohabbat Kitni Karoon, heading home.
Both Basu and Suri being the ’80s/’90s master Mahesh Bhatt’s protégés. They also belong to the vintage when, once confident with a soundtrack, one could altogether skip figuring out the rest of the film!
Could say that for a lot of Suri’s movies, especially thrillers (Ek Villain Returns, Malang, etc). Not so with Saiyaara — about two broken people, simply out there for each other. Viscerally romantic thought.
There is also that precious sense of the big screen, in the smaller moments, even if captured through montage for a song. The girl has been previously hit by heartbreak. The boy is struggling to make ends meet, simultaneously seeking fame, fighting demons within and without.
A major concern with modern romances is often a believable conflict. Here, it’s a circumstance. The girl’s losing memory. And you do care.
Whether or not the movie’s memorable, which is a function of time — given young romances with their clichés were getting deemed dated as a Bollywood genre — Saiyaara is by no means a forgettable film.
That’s saying a lot. Also, saying it with a sigh of relief!
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