I’m conflicted right now. Do I talk about the movie, or do I talk about late Sushant Singh Rajput? It took me a long time to find words for expressing how much I miss SSR, and despite my post yesterday, I never felt I could do justice to how I feel or what he deserves.
There might be things here which you want to experience yourself before reading further, so beware.
Before the movie started and after it ended, Fox Star Studio had added a small tribute to SSR, and each time, my heart skipped a beat. At the end, after the movie ended (with the same ending as the original, making it even more tough), there was a small slideshow of Sushant’s pictures from the movie, and slowly, the colors faded, and the words –
“Sushant,
You will always be missed.”
appeared on the screen. Every painful feeling in this regards just magnified at that moment.
As painful as all of this is, let’s also talk about the movie once. I love The Fault in our Stars. The movie, as a rare occurance, even more than the book. The original movie makes me weep, but.. minus the SSR factor, this movie failed to generate the same emotions. Spoilers ahead.
In The Fault in our Stars, you too feel the need to know how The Imperial Affection ends. Here, its replaced by a song, and that “incomplete” song fails to generate the same curiosity. The ending and the “funeral” scene doesn’t hit as hard. The background score somewhat lacks the charm, despite great music. Okay, and rest everything kept aside:
A remake needs to be adapted, not copy-pasted.
Frankly, they copied the entire story, each and every scene. There’s no creativity, except the original album. It’s the same film, except made with Indian cast and crew. This story can not exist in India. When you’re adapting a Hollywood movie/ American book into a Bollywood film, you need to make it fit the Indian setting, which this film fails to do.
Indian households aren’t that open. Not at all in Tier 2 cities. We do not have a prom. You can not lift a movie made for the American culture, not change a thing, cast Indian actors, and be done with the remake. When making a remake, you need to adapt it to the culture you’re making it for. Take the same story, and place it in a little different, more relatable setting.
But, but, the fans of the original work. Watch it for Sushant’s smile; that’s beautiful throughout. He does absolute justice to the role of Augustus Waters. Could not have a better person for the job.
The ones who’ve not watched the original film, I’ll highly recommend you to check that out after you watch this remake. It’s one of my favorite hollywood films in the genre.
Ek tha raja. Ek thi rani. Dono marr gye. Khatam kahani.
Sushant,
We miss you a lot.
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