‘Aisha’ Isn’t Half As Good As It Looks

Director: Rajshree Ojha
Cast: Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar, Amrita Puri, Arunoday Singh, Lisa Haydon
Rating: ★★☆☆☆

One doesn’t look for much logic or depth in a fluffy, romantic film like Aisha but the movie fails to match even the low expectations we have. Aisha looks prettier than most Hindi movies, but the characters have been given so little depth, and their emotions run so shallow, that the film drags even at the relatively short running time of 2 hours. If only the scriptwriter had put in as much as effort as the costume designers, Aisha may not have been ridden with plot holes.

Take the scene at a restaurant where cool-dude Dhruv (Singh), who’s been wooing Aisha (Kapoor), starts making out with bombshell Arti (Haydon), who is Arjun’s (Deol) girlfriend. When Arjun and Aisha see the two kissing, you expect to see a punch-up between the two guys. Arjun barely reacts, and the next time we see Arti and him together, he is congratulating her and blissfully dancing at her wedding to Dhruv. Aisha seems to have been inspired more by the 1995 Alicia Silverstone movie Clueless than Jane Austen’s nineteenth-century novel Emma on which both the films have been based. Suffice to say, the author would not approve.

The story revolves around spoilt, rich, match-making obsessed Aisha Kapoor from tony South Delhi, and her new “project”, Shefali Thakur (Puri) from Bahadurgarh. With the help of her best friend Pinky (Dubey), Aisha gives Shefali a makeover and sets her up first with bumbling boy Randhir Gambhir (Sahukar), who is from unfashionable West Delhi, and subsequently with Dhruv, all the while censured by handsome neighbour Arjun. Inevitably, there are mix-ups that you can see coming a mile away, like Randhir proposing to Aisha, or Aisha’s romantic speech at the wrong venue.

One of the saving graces of the film is the catchy music by Amit Trivedi. The other is the styling and costume designs by Pernia Qureshi and Kunal Rawal who make the film look appropriately slick and glossy. The performances by the entire cast are competent if not memorable, with Puri deserving special mention for her efficient portrayal of the bubbly and earnest Shefali, and Singh and Haydon for upping the eye-candy factor. However, good looks and great costumes alone cannot carry a film that meanders and remains as superficial as its lead character.