Laaga Chunari Mein Daag -- My Veil Is Stained

MAIN CAST:
Rani Mukherjee -- Vibha
Konkona Sen Sharma -- Shubhavari
Jaya Bachchan -- Mother
Anupam Kher -- Father
Abhishek Bachchan -- Rohan
Kunal Kapoor -- Vivaan

BRIEF PLOT OVERVIEW:
Vibha and Shubhari, two incredibly close sisters, love their life in Benares, but have trouble making ends meet. Vibha attempts to find a job in Mumbai, only to be left with no choice but to become a high-class escort.

FILM -- 3.5/5
LCMD is a Yash Raj film, so of course it's beautifully and colorfully filmed, with top-notch costumes and picturizations. Even if you hate the film, it's pretty to watch. The script is above average, with some contrived dialogue that the actors nevertheless manage to make gold out of and relatively predictable plot twists. There's some jumping around with the plot and the tone of the film, although it wasn't jarring enough to make me write off the movie completely. What little dancing there is is admirable for its energy. The run time is listed as being a little under 2 1/2 hours, but the pace is extremely slow, and parts of the plot are just put in as fan service, like the various romances. Yash Raj also takes the time to sorta-subtly pimp its big stars; for example, Shahrukh Khan is mentioned all throughout the film, and you'll see an ad for Chak De! India pop up as soon as Vibha arrives in the city. Really, this film is quite candy-coated, especially when it deals with the grittier aspects of big city living, but it's got a good bit of charm, so it's still enjoyable.

CHARACTERS -- 4/5
Konkona steals the show; she's beautiful, charming, and incredibly talented. She fits her character, a naive and opinionated younger sister, like a glove. Kunal Kapoor's character is kind of bland when he walks on screen, but he becomes more interesting as the story progresses, and he's still quite handsome. I loved his chemistry with Konkona! Rani Mukherjee looks rather tired throughout the film, but she is still often beautiful and charming. LCMD is character-based, of course, and for the most part, Rani carries the film well. If anything, Konkona provides the realism, Rani the melodrama, and it's a combination that works well enough. Anupam Kher and Jaya Bachchan are lovely as Shubhari and Vibha's parents, characters who are shown at their worst due to money troubles and pride, but are still worthwhile people. Abhishek Bachchan jumps in and out of the film for less than 20 minutes worth of screen time. His only purpose is to be a charming Romeo, and he does well enough with that shell of a character. The supporting cast is a little more "meh," full of stereotypical villains with damages and disabilities. Hema Malini makes a special appearance to perform a short Mujra, and she looks BEAUTIFUL!

SOUNDTRACK -- 2/5
Unlike most Yash Raj soundtracks, Laaga Chunari Mein Daag's music does little for me. Konkona and Rani open the film with the Latin-sounding "Hum To Aise Hain." "Zara Gungunalein" is a typical love ballad between Vibha and Rohan that bored me after a minute or two. "Chunari Mein Daag" has a trippy picturization and is a synthesized tune-o-melancholy that I really loved, maybe because it's the only song with really good lyrics. "Ik Teeki Teeki Si Ladki" is another bland love ballad with typical uber-colorful picturizations. The last song, "Kachchi Kaliyan" manages to finish the film with a bang. Overall, a boring, run-of-the-mill soundtrack that some people will probably enjoy, but is really just composed of easy-listening crap.

OVERALL -- 3/5
It's a common complaint that Laaga Chunari Mein Daag glosses over the harsher aspects of prostitution, and to some extent, that's true. But Pretty Woman did the same thing, and with a much lower class of prostitution. As far as top-tier escorts go, Vibha's life is pretty much right on-target, although I doubt any man would pay so much for an escort who looked so bored during sex, no matter how beautiful she was. While the soundtrack does little for me and the film lacks replay value, thanks mostly to its slow-moving story, it's still worth a viewing.

TOTAL SCORE -- 12.5/20 (okay)




A COUPLE OF SIDENOTES:

While the Yash Raj copy of this film is beautifully packaged, it has a lot of annoying issues attached to it. You have to sit through almost 10 minutes of advertisements to get to the film, and they attempted to make the English subtitles for the songs rhyme, completely changing the translation from the actual meaning. It wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying the film, but it was enough to keep me from liking the disc it was on.