Movie:SuperstarCast: Kunal Khemu, Tulip Joshi, Aushima Sawhney, Shreyas Talpade, Reema Lagoo, Sharat Saxena, Vrajesh Hirjee
Music:Shamir Tandon, Abhijit Vaghani
Lyrics:Sabeer Ahmad, Shabbir Ahmed
Director:Rohit Jugraj
It's not often that you come away from a film thinking, "Oh hell, this one is far better than I thought!" Original, vibrant, tongue-in-cheek and yet moving in its sincerity, "Superstar" acquires its power and energy purely from its maker's ability to infuse potentially hammy situations with a bristling believability.
You've seen films about doppelganger-transference where look-alikes cross the line into each other's realm of vision to exchange lives. "The Prince and The Pauper" did it long before "Raja Aur Runk" and "Duplicate". Most films about double roles simplify the moral lines to the extent that Ram and Shyam become figures on either sides of the coin.
Rohit Jugraj tosses that coin into the air and lets it fall languorously and neatly to the ground.
That he has set this feisty, funny and exhilarating fable of the prince and the super-prince (forget the pauper) in the film industry, is a happy occurrence that gives the narrative a zest to make in-house jokes without tripping over on its own cleverness.
This would be as good a time as any to state that Kunal Khemu, who plays the earnest junior artiste and the spoilt but still-decent producer's son who cannot value the gift of Bollywood like his more humble middle-class doppelganger, is a revelation. He brings to the two characters more than just a surface dissimilarity.
Khemu doesn't try to make the characters of Kunal and Karan different from each other. Often, as in a critical pre-interval sequence when the plot takes a literal somersault, we see the two as the yin and yang, mirror images looking into one another's soul with disarming transparency.
"Superstar" represents the wry and slightly cynical view of the outsider peeping nervously and enviously into the glittery world of the entertainment industry. But the sense of wonderment is well contained. Neither the humble wannabe nor the privileged producer's son are portrayed with cynicism so that when the personality transference between the two occurs unexpectedly, we aren't looking at a morality-play but a Bollywood take on Bollywood with the conventions turned on their head.
Jugraj constantly refers to Bollywood biggies from Amitabh Bachchan in "Deewaar" to Ayesh Jhulka in "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar" to Salman Khan in "Andaz Apna Apna".
Watch "Superstar" for Jugraj's fresh original take on Bollywood's dream factory and Kunal Khemu's sincere and warm performance as the wannabe and the star who share more than just a passing affinity with the Rams and Shyams of showbiz. Source-www.nowrunning.com
