Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Devdas is an epic love story written by famous Bengali writer Sarat Chandra Chattopadhye in 1917. The original is in Bengali and I have not even read English translation of it. But from what I have heard about Sarat Chandra and Bengali literature of that era this has to be a serious and deep book. The romance of Devdas and Paro, the hero and heroine can be compared with and are said to evoke the same feelings as Romeo and Juliet. A few movies on the book have been made in the past too. I have not seen anyone of them.
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali made Devdas again in the year 2002. The other reviews at Epinions have given it a five star rating but I will give it only three stars. I went to watch this movie after a long time of it being released and had no great expectations from it. The pre-release hype was incredible and it put me off. It was only after that a good friend of mine recommend it, saying it is not as bad as you think that I venture to see it. She was right; it is not as bad as I thought.
The Plot of the Movie: The plot of the movie is very simple, it is a love triangle. Devdas and Paro have known each other since childhood and almost everyone around them knew they were destined to fall in love. Devdas goes to England to study law and Paro waits for him to come back (doing a lot of gimmick in the mean while, like keeping a candle lighted every day for him). Once he is back they spend some great time together. But Devdas belongs to a very affluent family and his family does not approve of this romance. Paro’s mother is worried about her daughter and arranges a match or rather mismatch for her. She gives Paro a chance to meet Devdas and see if he agrees to marry her. Devdas does nothing untill it is very late and Paro ends up marrying to the person her mother has arranged. The story is supposed to begin from here. Both Paro and Devdas cannot forget or live without each other. Paro is married to a widower who has two grown up children. Devdas meets a person addicted to alcohol, Chunni Lal and through him meets a courtesan Chandamukhi. This web gets entangled and finally the book and the movie, both end in tragedies.
The Star Cast:
Shahrukh Khan: Devdas Mukherjee
Shahrukh Khan is one of the top Bollywood heroes. His movies generally do good business but I find his acting abilities very limited, if you have seen him once you have seen him for all. I feel he does not have more than five expressions at his command and it becomes very boring to watch him after a while. In Devdas I ended up with the feeling that I was watching Shahrukh Khan in the movie rather than the character he is supposed to play.
Madhuri Dixit: Chandramukhi
Madhuri Dixit has been considered the number one heroine of Bollywood for a very long time. She is a capable actress and in this movie though she has a small role, she has done justice to it. After her marriage in real life to a US based Indian doctor (an arranged marriage!) Madhuri is seen rarely in Bollywood movies these days.
Aishwarya Rai: Parvati ('Paro')
Aish (as she is referred to in the Indian newspapers) is a former Miss World and currently the most sought after heroine in Bollywood. She looks dazzling on screen in most of her movies. She does so in Devdas too. She has acted well but still a few times I got the impression that I am watching Aish rather than Paro on screen.
Jackie Shroff: Chunnilal
Kiron Kher: Sumitra (Paro’s Mother)
Shroff and Kher both have done justice to their roles in the movie.
My Thoughts: Devdas was India’s entry to Oscar for the year 2003. It could not make to the final five like the previous entry Laagan. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali made this movie on a huge budget and it shows. The costumes and sets are elaborate, and songs of the movie catching, but then this is the case with most of the Indian movies. In fact some of the costumes are so rich that they are said to weigh a lot making all those dancing movements for Madhuri very uncomfortable. I could have never guessed it after watching her dance, she is as graceful as ever. For that matter so is Aish in all her dance sequences. The sets of the movie are rich in order to recreate the glory and affluence of the past era and have succeeded. So if you are new to Indian movies these aspects may hold a lot of appeal to you, there are a lot of colors in the movie. Devdas can be watched only for this.
But I am an Indian, live in India and have grown up on a staple diet of Bollywood movies. I take richness of the set, melody of the movie and the elaborate dance sequence for granted. The first failure of the movie is the liberty taken by Bhansli in the portrayal of the book. I understand that book and movies are two different mediums and a director is entitled to taking creative liberties in making a movie. But what happened in Devdas is this, while in the book Chandramukhi and Paro are never face to face, in the movie they share a chummy relationship. As both women are madly in love with the same person, how chummy could they get really? Because of this it seems everything is all right with everyone. Paro is married to someone else but she knows Devdas is OK because Chandramukhi is taking care of him. Devdas seems to be having best of both the worlds, two beautiful women pining for him, and Chandramukhi feels no guilt being involved with a man said to be mad about just this one women because that women has approved the relationship. Where is the tragedy in this? I would have preferred the book’s version in the portrayal of the love triangle, which by the virtue of not letting Chandramukhi and Paro meet would be more complex.
Secondly, Bhansali wanted to make a film depicting a bygone era, but at the same time he wanted the young crowd to be able to identify with the movie. In trying to achieve this, I felt that I am watching modern people behaving like they live in the year 2002 but they are wearing ancient costumes. This certainly is not my idea of a good movie trying to capture the magic of a past era. The characterization too is weak. Devdas is supposed to be a complex character, but in the movie he first seems to be fickle and then outright weak. But then this might be a problem with the acting abilities of Shahruk Khan, as I said earlier, I have not seem him ever been able to display more than five expressions in his entire career.
When I watch a movie I want fabulous sets and good music to flatter the story line and not that they become the substitute for good narration as is the case for Devdas. So overall, if you are new to Indian movies, Devdas can be watched just because it is different, but if you have seen a lot of them and do not like the standard fare of Bollywood excessively, Devdas can probably given a miss.
Just in case you are interested in Indian movies here are a few that I have reviewed. I am interpreting the term Indian liberally and including those movies that are foreign productions but deal with the issue of Indians living abroad.
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