Movie Review - 2 States

The story need not have a hero, but the story should be the hero. The male protagonist who is an aspiring writer airily declares this to his girlfriend just when the movie begins. This was a strong statement to generate some interest and curiosity for the story but to my utter dismay even after the movie ended I could not find the story there forget that being the hero.

I am not a huge fan of Chetan Bhagat's genre of story telling, honestly I have not read his stories. Not that I didn't want to, I tried few times but his novels have always failed me as reader. Most of the times I couldn't go beyond the first twenty, twenty five pages. This movie was no different. Two States could still have worked with a strong screenplay as it did in 3 Idiots, but it was almost non existent here.

A north Indian boy falls for a south Indian girl, both study together in girl's hostel room, jump into bed quite a few times before realizing that they are in love. The melodrama follows wherein each take turns to bridge the north south divide, they meet through the stumbling blocks, overcome them and eventually get married.

But hey, give me a break! A North Indian Punjabi is not just about alcohol and a South Indian Brahmin is not just about banana leaves and sambhar. The film makers in India as also the story tellers watch out, its time to come up with more realistic and creative cultural depictions now.

The movie moves at a snail's pace in the first half and then stops moving completely in the second half. Especially in the second half, there were many sequences where the film could have ended with ease.

The wow factors in the film are few, Arjun Kapoor is good, Alia falls flat, her plastic smile either during intimate scenes on bed or on serious moments during the cross cultural conflicts, is irritating. She has proved her acting talent earlier in Highway, but here fizzles out completely.

Song and dance sequences are good. The rock solid performances by Ronit Roy, Amrita Singh, and Revathy have to a great extent compensated for the weak screenplay most of the times.

My ultimate take on the movie is that, if you are not a die hard fan of Chetan Bhagat's genre of story narration, a CD experience of the movie should be fine. Save your theater experience for the upcoming releases, there are some really good ones coming up later this month.