That girl in Yellow Boots, Bollywood English Film Review, Johnson Thomas

English film reviewJohnson ThomasLove’s Labour LostFilm: That Girl in Yellow BootsCast: Kalki Kochlin, Prashant, Gulshan Devaiah, Naseeruddin Shah, Pooja SwarupDirector: Anuraag KashyapRating: * *Ever since Anuraag Kashyap and Kalki Kochlin teamed up for the indie shocker“Dev D’ and took their professional relationship into the personal, he has been trying to give her career in the movies a fillup- and quite successfully at that. A well-received ‘Shaitan’ was followed by the hit ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ and Kalki’s star was already on an ascendant. But this film, ‘That girl in Yellow Boots’ planned much before ‘Sahitan’ and ‘ZNMD,” having a story by Kalki and screenplay co-scripted by Anuraag Kashyap himself, is not cinematic at all. The narrative merely elaborates on a one line theme about a woman searching for her father in Mumbai and Pune. The father supposedly walked out on her, Ruth(Kalki) and her mother following the suicide of her step-sister Emily. Now Ruth, a UK citizen has run away from home and come to India to search out the whereabouts of a father she knows nothing about. She has fleeting memories of the fond relationship she had with him as a child but no picture or address to aid her-just a letter he wrote her. Even the envelope with the address is lost. From one of her contacts she gets close to his trail.

The story is simple enough but there are impediments to her search. Her visa has expired and all efforts to renew her stay validity come a cropper because of corrupt consulate personnel and police. She works illegally at a shady massage parlour managed by a phone addict Maya(Pooja Swaroop) and even helps clients get-off with a shake-hand/happy ending(euphemism) in order to earn extra big bucks to keep her wastrel junkie boyfriend(Prashant) and the blackmailing cop in line. She also has late night dinner meets with one high-ranking official from the consulate and throws in soliciting as part and parcel of the exchange. Does she really need to do all this? is a question any sane person would ask. Ruth wallows in her own degradation while playing to the gallery on her own victimisation. She is unhappy with her boyfriend but doesn’t want to kick him out of her life. She willingly lets the others-her clients and her various sources use and abuse her sexually when she could just as well have done without it. It’s a kind of perverted scenario that is immensely off-putting. To top it all she also comes in contact with a local goon Chuttiappa(Gulshn Devaiaih) who wants to collect from her what Prashant owes to him. Her clients are all perverted old men who find more pleasure in young hands massaging their libido rather than in the conjugal act. Then there is this old gentleman Diwakar(Naseeruddin Shah) who is always fully clothed in and out of the massage session and looks dotingly at Ruth, in fatherly fashion. The scenario is well set for a twisted revelation towards the end but it’s not as shocking as the director-writer duo would have wanted it to be- mainly because by the time the revelation occurs you become so benumbed by the entire unsettling experience of sitting through a series of visceral perversions, that you are too fatigued to react to the climactic revelation.

The characters are few and other than Ruth, no one receives enough screen-time or development to warrant endearment. Even Ruth’s character is so wishy-washy that it becomes hard to relate to her predicament or even empathise with it. Her sexploitation appears far too willing for us to see her as a victim. It is also quite unbelievable that her mother would not have warned her about her father’s sexual preferences before she set out to find him. Too many loose ends and not enough logic to sustain interest in such a flimsy set-up.The tone and tenor is dark and the colours suitably saturated. The pace though is more doodling than happening. There is also not much of import or impact happening throughout the narrative so you wouldn’t be faulted if you fell asleep mid-way through the film. The runtime is a short 92 minutes but that is not a help at all. Kashyap may have earned his name as a cult helmer but with this effort he is merely set on imitating masterly styles instead of concentrating on substance. The camerawork is suitably grungy but the performances lack the spark to make this effort more than just a curious case of misappropriated intent..Johnsont307@gmail.com