Courtesy of a weak script, a predictable ending and an excessive overall length, “Sanam Teri Kasam” failed to live up to the expectations of the audience and it settled after the Karachi premiere.
Newcomers Mawra Hocane and Harshavardhan Rane play two predictably cliched characters that reinforce one’s faith in stereotypes. Mawra plays Saraswathi – the geeky, plain clothed ugly duckling who no boy wants to romance while Harsha vardhan plays Inder – the tattooed bad boy with a murky past.
So from the very beginning of the film, we can easily predict the ending. Saraswathi’s strict South Indian family has no love for Inder’s shady past and her dad decides to do her last rites to mark her ‘death’ in their family which is the turning point of the film.
There is nothing extra ordinary in the film and the pace of the film is very slow especially in the second half of the film. Moreover, the editing of the film was also not up to the mark. The ending was dragged a lot due to which it became lengthy, and thus added to the list of negative factors for the film at the Box Office.
There are a few modest scenes (such as that of Murli Sharma’s overseer demonstration) which weaken the earnestness of the film. The pace, the force and the fervor which were built up by the first half absolutely lose all sense of direction in the film’s second half.
The film’s plot could have been better had it not been so melodramatic. Playing to stereotypes is quite typical of the Bollywood film industry. Being a librarian, Saru has to be geeky and because she has nerdy looks, no guy is good to her causing her to be filled with self doubt. This reinforces the concept of women being complexed about their beauty which is an existing trait in Asian women as there is a general concept that unattractive women do not get good proposals so this movie has reinforced this concept by depicting it.
As the film has a dramatic tone there is a lot of crying involved and the break-down scenes are extremely depressing for the audience as well. Watching the characters cry over and over not only increased the run time of the movie but it also made the movie appear like a soap opera.
The background music for certain emotional scenes was so jarringly loud that it completely killed the essence of those scenes. Also, the songs of the movie had too much of an emotional tone and were very slow paced.
Mawra Hocane, however was very bold in the film. There are some scenes which might not be liked by the conservative Pakistani fans who did not expect Mawra to be this bold. Mawra Hocane is shown as a girl who is pretty but she feels that no one loves her. She overacts in a lot of scenes, especially her nerdy-girl act.
Additionally, her character is very similar to some of the roles she had already played in Pakistani drama serials so the viewers expected something different from her but her character is pretty much the same and she is shown crying all day and has a tragic life.
Another drawback of the film was that it depicted certain perceptions which will have a great influence on the audience. For example, the transformation of a nerdy girl character to a beautiful and attractive woman which leads guys to fall for her is a very wrong concept which has been portrayed and it will have a huge impact on the minds of the viewers as they will start copying the character.
Contributed by Maham Jaffery.
