Khoya Khoya Chand
is a shockingly inept film with little to recommend
it. The film is ‘done in’, so to say,
due to a terribly weak screenplay that is made
worse by woeful execution.
The film traces the tumultuous love story of
an actress, Nikhat (Soha Ali Khan) and a writer-director,
Zafar (Shiney Ahuja) set against the Hindi film
industry of the 1950s and 1960s.
Sudhir Mishra has spoken repeatedly about how
this period fascinated him as it does all Indian
filmmakers. It was after all the golden era of
Hindi filmdom, a peak period for so many all time
greats of Hindi cinema – Guru
Dutt, Mehboob
Khan, Raj
Kapoor, Bimal
Roy, Vijay
Anand, Dilip
Kumar, Dev
Anand, Madhubala,
Nargis, Meena
Kumari, Nutan,
Waheeda Rehman,
Naushad, SD
Burman, Sahir
Ludhanvi, Lata
Mangeshkar, Geeta
Dutt, Asha Bhosle,
Mohd. Rafi, Mukesh,
Hemant Kumar,
and many, many more…the list is endless.
Sadly, not one of the filmmaking sequences in
the film seems to indicate the period was the
brightest one in Hindi Cinema and not one of the
scenes being filmed also suggest that the final
film would be a classic. We don’t have any
insight to the thought process that went into
filmmaking then; what was it that produced masterpieces
like Do Bigha
Zameen (1953), Shree
420 (1955), Mother
India (1957), Pyaasa
(1957), Sahib Bibi
Aur Ghulam (1962) and Bandini
(1963) just to name some. And after all if
Zafar has shades of Guru Dutt and Nikhat an uneasy
amalgamation of Waheeda Rehman, Meena Kumari and
Madhubala surely there was something to their
creativity and talent but there is nothing to
suggest why the film had to be set in this period
for honestly the story could have taken place
anytime.
 One
understands the 50s and 60s Hindi film industry
is just the backdrop for Nikhat and Zafar’s
story and not the focus of the film so one shouldn’t
expect a lesson in Hindi filmmaking of the 50s
and 60s but a good screenplay would have made
even the background scenes of the film industry
and its people, its ways of working relevant to
the story and give the film the much needed depth
it clearly lacks.
The script yet, again, is the biggest culprit.
The film’s major characters are all selfish,
self-centred and narcissistic, unlikeable and
totally uninvolving as they use each other for
their own personal gains. Again, one is not saying
one has to have one dimensional sugary characters
for them to be likeable. In fact, characters such
as these are more real and three dimensional but
the challenge for the filmmaker is also that much
tougher to get audiences to care for them. Johhny
Gaddaar did this beautifully for Neil Nitin
Mukesh but Khoya Khoya Chand fails miserably.
As the film goes on and on endlessly in the second
half, you really don’t give a damn about
the events unfolding around Nikhat, Prem Kumar
and Zafar on the screen or what the characters
are going through. In fact, you are just waiting
impatiently for the film to end.
The flow of the narrative is choppy, randomly
flowing between its various characters and episodic
to say the least. Shots and scenes look like they
have been thought of without a proper beginning,
development and end. Transitions, so essential
to smooth storytelling in film, are totally missing.
Several sequences are clumsily and amateurishly
handled like the out of focus love making with
Sonya and Shiney as they are caught by Soha (an
aesthetic decision gone terribly wrong?!) or the
photographs of Shiney in London to show he has
gone there. Very few scenes actually work like
the stone throwing one. In terms of shot taking,
the film suffers from a bad overdose of circular
tracking shots without any meaning whatsoever
as if it (circular track) is suddenly a new toy
the filmmaker has discovered. While the film does
faithfully try to create its period, the budget
problems show but still make for a limited and
passable re-creation.
Coming to the actors, the lead performances fail
to lift the film and are nothing to write home
about. But maybe the actors are just defeated
by the script as they have certainly performed
better before in other films. And, there are times
especially in Soha Ali Khan’s case when
you do feel that it’s not merely the writing
but that the complexities of Nikhat and what she
goes through are just beyond her comprehension.
Consequently her performance is inconsistent and
lacks depth and maturity. Shiney Ahuja is strictly
OK, Rajat Kapoor is efficient enough while Vinay
Pathak does his supporting act competently. If
anyone, Sonya Jehan is actually a pleasant surprise
as she manages to flesh out and make the most
of her small role as a tantrum throwing diva.
Technically, barring the music there is really
nothing to comment positively on as the film is
quite tacky. Yeh Nigahein and the title
song in particular are well composed and capture
a feel of the times quite well. The cinematography
is uninspired with some truly bizarre and awful
shot taking and compositions, the editing extremely
choppy and loose as the second half in particular
needed to be drastically trimmed and as mentioned,
the production design and costumes are passable
as the effort is definitely there to re-create
the period of the 1950s and 60s.
All in all, the film is terribly, terribly disappointing
and makes for tedious viewing.
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