Schizophrenia has been a hot topic with movie makers and watchers for ages. From the 1948 movie 'Snake Pit' to the more recent 'A Beautiful Mind' starting Russell Crowe and the Jim Carrey special 'Me, Myself and Irene', the mind has mattered to cinema in a big way. So, when a loser called Karthik Narayan begins to get calls urging him to stand up and take control of his life, it didn't require supernatural intelligence to guess that the protagonist was one round the bend.
Director Vijay Lalwani, who has also written the story, seems to display a certain naiveté about the knowledge levels of his audience as he attempts to build up suspense about the mystery caller who sounds like Karthik and knows everything from the color of his socks to his internet banking PIN number. That he failed became obvious to me when mid-way through the first half, my teenaged daughter guessed corrected that the protagonist suffered from a split personality.
Having said so, the film co-produced by Farhan Akhtar and old pal Ritesh Sidhwani, has its moments. And one must give credit to some crisp editing by Aarti Bajaj and a robust background score by Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale. Of course, one expects Farhan Akhtar to come out with a performance that matches the character and he doesn't disappoint.
The sudden transformation in persona from a meek Karthik who is cowed down by his boss (Ram Kapoor) to the assertive but not flamboyant person who walks into the same boss's room and convinces him to get back his job has been well captured by Farhan, who is proving that he is as good before the camera as he is behind it. And true to nature, he comes up gems that I tend to believe are a result of his directorial genius. An involuntary yelp when a phone rings inside a shop and a tongue in cheek remark about being "straight" bring out that sharp scripting mind.
Deepika Padukone has put in a restrained performance as Shonali Mukherjee, a Gen Next career woman who believes wine is for women and carries around her own whisky and soda, much to the chagrin of her teetotaler fiancé. Even when she learns about Karthik's anonymous caller and convinces him to meet a shrink, there is no melodrama, something that one has come to expect even from the so-called "mulitiplex" directors.
The movie begins well and breezes through the first half as Karthik metamorphes from a shy introvert to a smart manipulator who knows what he wants and also figures out how to get it. It is the second half that meanders a bit, especially a few scenes involving Karthik and Shonali that take the movie nowhere in particular. And when things start to crumble after our hero decides to confide about his phone friend to his fiancé, things perk up again.
However, despite a promising premise that was quite obvious from the early stages of the movie, the director somehow fails to deliver a knock-out punch at any stage of the narrative with the movie ending rather tamely on expected lines. There is a contemporary feel to the movie, though the camera seems to be largely lazy, which worked for me because it served to heighten the suspense.
The end result was that the movie kept me intrigued throughout its length though when I emerged from the auditorium, there is a feeling of emptiness. It is almost as if I wanted to turn and ask the writer: "Why did you have to fool me? I have heard of schizophrenics, you know"?
