Movie Review: Yeh Faasley

Movie: Yeh Faasley
Director: Yogesh Mittal
Rating: *1/2 (Review by Anupama Chopra)

Yeh Faasley is the torturously long and convoluted story of a young girl unravelling her mother's mysterious death.

Arunima, played by Tena Desae, returns home after a long stint in boarding school. Her father Devinder, played by Anupam Kher, is generous and loving but slowly Arunima discovers that his version of how her mother died isn't the whole truth. Devinder has hidden from Arunima many aspects of their troubled marriage - the two met in college and she, a Rajasthani princess fell in love with a "Jath-mazdoor," as he describes himself. Arunima begins to investigate and finds herself torn between her love for her father and her duty to her dead mother.

There is a sliver of a story here but director Yogesh Mittal has twisted and stretched it into a tale of mind-numbing foolishness and boredom. It feels like Mittal couldn't decide what he was making - a thriller, murder mystery or family drama - and so bunged in a bit of everything: we have the spooky hill station house where the incident happened; the scared servant who may or may not be telling the truth; another man - Pavan Malhotra posing as Rajasthani royalty - who may or may not have been in love with the mother. None of this is very interesting to begin with and the amateurish acting and direction only makes it worse.

Fine actors like Malhotra and Seema Biswas are wasted. Anupam Kher tries hard to portray the complexities of a man who is passionately in love with his wife and yet deeply insecure but he is also mostly reduced to screaming and curling back his lips.

And what can I say about the dialogue? At one point, Devinder says he hated his wife's passion for music because: hum mazdooron ko music se kya lena dena and at another, Kiran Kumar, playing his lawyer says: Ek ek jam baap beti ke pyar ke naam.

The tragedy is that Yeh Faasley isn't even unintentionally funny so it doesn't make the grade of so-bad-that-it's-good. It's just pure tedium. I'm going with one and a half stars.
Source:NDTV

H'wood calling: Model-turned-actor Tena Desae talks about bagging a Hollywood film, opposite actor Dev Patel

Her name may not a ring a bell, instantly, but she is a household face for sure. After all, actor Tena Desae — who is one of the newest entrants in Hi-Fi (Hindi Film Industry) — has more than 40 commercials to her credit. And though the model-turned-actor has not had a single release here yet, Tena may well be on her way to becoming an international star. Having bagged a vital role in the John Madden directed Hollywood film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the actor is already testing Hollywood waters with a film that co-stars Oscar-winner Judi Dench, Bill Nighy and has her romancing the Slumdog Millionaire actor, Dev Patel. Having already shot for several portions of the film with Dev, Tena reveals that it's hard to compare working in Hi-Fi and Hollywood.
"For me, the entire experience of shooting in itself was so new that it's hard to say if I had more fun shooting for my Hindi films or the English one," says Tena.


Talking about working with Dev, she adds, "He is very unassuming and has no airs about being the Slumdog hero at all. We bonded well, because we are closer in age." But ask her about the chemistry she shared with the actor and she says, "For that you'll just have to watch the film. I can't divulge much about the characters."

Back in Hi-Fi, the actor will be seen in Yeh Faasley and Sharafat Gayi Tel Lene. Both films, Tena points out, are very different from each other. "And that's the kind of repertoire I would want to have, exploring different genres and I am not afraid to experiment," she says revealing that she has no planned career moves at all.

However, she does have a wish-list of actors and film-makers she'd like to work with. "And it's a long one too," she laughs. "Of course Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan top the list," she says. Incidentally, she has acted with them in commercials. "Yes, but no actor's graph is ever complete without working with them. That would be more exciting than any Hollywood film," says the actor, who has no qualms in admitting that modelling was a stepping stone to films.
"I believe in dreaming big. I also believe in the mantra that 'When you want something badly enough, the universe conspires for you to get it'. And I think it's just worked for me," she concludes.
Source:DNA