Dec 01, 2007 08:18 PM
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Aditya Chopra s ‘ Aaja Nachle’ was very eagerly awaited as ‘Madhuri Dixit s comeback movie’. The queen of Bollywood is stellar in her second innings and has indeed made a very powerful re-entry. Astonishingly slim and generously flashing her disarming smile, Madhuri looks more vibrant than ever before and there is this extra radiance in her which could probably be attributed to motherhood, which makes a woman complete.
Since the story revoves around dancing, which is her forte, Madhuri slips into the role as easily and smoothly as she fits into those lovely costumes in the movie. She stamps her class with some very forcefully emotive performances without being melodramatic. As a mother of a girl raised in US, as a bubbly young girl brushing romance with an American, as a smart lady who manipulates local politicians to achieve her objective, Madhuri delivers a performance like only she can. The queen is back and apparently, there are not too many in the industry who can match this exceptionally brilliant actress. Director(Anil Mehta) has taken a huge deviation by making a woman the central character in a male dominated industry, but someone with the stature and performance of Madhuri can never let any amount of faith imposed by her directors go down. Madhuri delivers and she does it with a grace, style and charm that is so unique in her.
The story is about Dia( Madhuri) Dixit who returns to her home town with an objective of bringing back to life the school ‘Ajanta ’ her mentor built with passion. She runs into political hurdles in form of a tough, young yet focused ‘Raja Sahib’( Akshaye Khanna), who is the local MP and has plans of demolishing the antique art school Ajanta and establishing a commercial mall. Slowly but steadily, with the support of Imran( Kunal Kapoor), Anokhi( Konkana Sen) and a few others, Dia manages to convince the clever MP that building an dance theatre is a better choice.
If Madhuri is the queen, Konkana is the Princess. She steals the thunder despite not having a powerful character. Akshaye shines as the wily yet courteous young politician with a mission. Kunal s role is perhaps the most underdeveloped one, but he does justice to his inclusion and credit must given to him for presenting an act that gets him attention amidst towering personalities like Madhuri and Konkana. Irfaan, Ranvir Shorey and Divya Dutta excel in the supporting roles and credit must be given to the director for bringing out the best in them.
The movie sails smoothly till the final act, when there is a stumble. The live performance of ‘ Laila and Majnu ‘ has been overdone and the audience literally wait for it to get over. It is sad that the director fails when all had to do was to give the knock out punch, but that doesn t take away any credit from the good work he has done all through the movie.
The dance sequences(Choreographer – Vaibhavi) are the jewels in the crown of the movie and not surprisingly, Madhuri and Konkana walk away with the honours.
Amidst a hoard of foul smelling, mediocre and pathetic movies the industry churns with an amazing consistency these days, Aaja Nachle comes in like a breeze. It is a movie you should not miss if you are someone who is waiting to watch a good or exceptional movie along with your family. You will definitely come out with a smile.
