Four characters — Arun (Aamir Khan) is an artist who lives his passion, Shia (Monica Dogra) is a photographer… well, actually, a banker who can afford a sabbatical to chase her passion, Munna (Prateik) is a wannabe actor (actually, a dhobi and rat-killer who is miles away from what he wants to do) and Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra), a bored housewife leading a passionless life, films herself with a video camera to document her married life as a series of letters to her brother. Chalo, let's make an arthouse film. Cute.
The problem with Dhobi Ghat is that the whole film seems to be a shot by Shia — the typical foreigner's gaze of Mumbai. All that stays with us at the end are the fantastic black and white shots of the exotic city set to a contemplative score by Gustavo Santaolalla.
The rest of the characters are all uni-dimensional.
We have a man obsessed with three MiniDV tapes he found in a locker in his new apartment and gets increasingly curious about the woman in the video. He decides to ask the watchman and the neighbour about her, but never quite figures that he could just hit Fast Forward and scan through the tapes in minutes to find out. That's how believable and plausible is Kiran Rao's portrayal of the intense, obsessed artist. Aamir, despite being awkward with his English dialogue delivery, brings a lot out of Arun with his brooding, thoughtful stares and looks, as he keeps to himself. This, when he's not spelling out character expository dialogue: “I am a loner. I tend to keep to myself.”
Then, we have Yasmin, the simpleton small town girl in the video, who for the sake of the screenplay's convenience, decides that talking to a video camera is the best way to send a letter to her brother in a village. Maybe she wanted to edit it on Windows MovieMaker and burn a DVD before she could send it to her brother. Or had plans to post the whole handycam. We never find out because she leaves the tapes locked in her cupboard. Maybe like a secret of an unfulfilled life and desire.
There's also the Dhobi, who hails from the slums and so the poor fellow must be connected to the mafia (cough: Stereotype) and does what he can for survival. From washing clothes to killing rats to helping his friend sell pot to chasing producers. But Prateik is so natural that you tend to forgive everything else and just watch the guy breathe some candid moments of life on film, antithetic to the calculated, premeditated shots of deep thought that Aamir Khan gives us.
The film's protagonist, and the most believable of them all, is Shia. And Monica Dogra, with her expressive eyes, instantly gives us a woman you will fall in love with — she's a hardcore romantic, an artist at heart, full of spirit and life. Now, this is a character Kiran Rao knows inside out, right from what she would wear to how she thinks to what she wants or does not want. And, this is the character that salvages the film and makes it entirely watchable.
The film's most powerful scene is Arun's though and it packs a wallop coming towards the end. Aamir redeems his entire character and its shallowness with that moment of truth. There are also a couple of nice moments as Arun holds his glass out to catch raindrops to mix his drink while raindrops from a leaky roof elsewhere in town are caught by a mug. And elsewhere, the rain triggers memories of a night and romance. How the monsoon means different things to different people.
Despite these touches of brilliance and some more towards the resolution, Dhobi Ghat never really lives up to the potential of the subject because of its half-baked characters and the convenience with which their lives crisscross (lazy screenwriting).
However, the atmospherics (cinematography by Tushar Kanti Ray, edited by Nishant Radhakrishnan) laced with the right mood music, and the freshness that the actors bring to the table, make up for all that's missing. Go watch.
Dhobi Ghat
Genre: Drama
Director: Kiran Rao
Cast: Prateik, Monica Dogra, Kriti Malhotra, Aamir Khan
Storyline: Lives of four Mumbai migrants crisscross and affect each other
Bottomline: Laboured attempt at constructing arthouse fare but a promising debut, nonetheless
