Mirziya: A Beautiful Canvas with bland colours of emotions

“Mirziya” , a lot is at stake, first it is the debut movie of Anil Kapoor’s son Harshvardhan Kapoor, second Gulzar returns as a writer after 17 year, thirdly it is being directed by the ace director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra…Well with so much happening whether the movie was worth a watch let us see…

“Mirziya” is a contemporary take on the folk lore love story of Mirza Sahibaan, it tells the story of Munish (Hrashvardhan Kapoor) and Suchitra (Saiyami Kher), two star crossed lovers who get separated during their childhood when young Munish is convicted of murder…Years later Suchitra returns from London to India, now she is engaged to get married to the prince, but fate has some other plans because Munish who has changed his name to Adil works in the stable of the prince and is given the responsibility of teaching Suchi to ride the horse, whether Suchi finds out that Adil is actually Munish her childhood love and what happens to star crossed lovers is what the movie is all about….

Well story wise there is nothing new as the story of Mirza Sahibaan follows the same mould as the other love stories of star crossed lovers. Where Gulzar tries to be different is presenting two tracks of the story, one the folk lore story of Mirza Sahibaan and the other the contemporary take on the story, and both the tracks are simultaneously narrated. The narration also follows a semi Broadway musical format. Well it is these two experiments which fail miserably. The two tracks of the story has no relevance to each other, apart to show the similarity of the stories, which just does not come out clearly and at the end you wonder whether the two tracks were really required. The Broadway musical format also hampers the narration due to too many songs to justify the musical format. Normally in a musical the songs take the story forward but here it hampers the pace, rather you feel whether so many songs were required at all. There are many things which remain unanswered till the end like what happened to Munish’s mom or what happened in the fateful night at the jungle when the tiger attacks Munish and how he gets saved, or what was the relationship between the iron smith and Munish.“Mirziya” is primarily a love story but it is the love story which is weak, and the writing fails to establish the chemistry between the two principal characters. The childhood track fails to establish the love between the two characters, they seem more like friends, hence when the characters grow up and Suchitra who is getting married to the prince and is shown that she loves the prince suddenly falls head over heels with Munish, which looks a bit hurried and the emotional quotient is so low in the writing that you fail to sympathize with the lovers at the end.. The dialogues also do not help to raise the otherwise weak script… Definitely “ Mirziya” is Gulzar’s weakest writing till date…

Debutants Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher who play the title role of Mirza/Munish and Sahibaan/Suchitra show the spark but fail miserably to rise above the weak script; rather there was absolutely no chemistry between Harshvardhan and Saiyami, which is the most important aspect in a love story. Another debutant Anuj Choudhary who plays the prince Karan impresses the most amongst the debutants and he looks apt as the suave royal prince. K K Raina as Raja Sahab has a small role but does justice whatever is given him to do. Art Mallik who plays Suchi’s father goes overboard with his histrionics and hams nonstop; such performance was not expected from an international actor of his calibre. Anjali Patil who plays Zeenat does justice to whatever is given to her. Om Puri is wasted in a cameo.

It is the Cinematographer Pawell Dyllus who the real stars of the movie; he captures each frame like a poem and makes “Mirziya” a visual delight to watch. The second star of the movie is its action, especially the action in the Mirza Sahibaan track, the action director team comprising of Allan Amin, Danny Baldwin & Manoher Verma do a splendid job…

The music which consists mainly of traditional and folk tunes is another highlight of the movie, Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy do a spectacular job with the music, each and every track is a gem in itself. The background score by Tubby is also worth a mention especially the symphony piece used during the action sequences were a highlight…

Rakesh Omprakash Mehra in his first full on love story fails miserably both in concept and execution. Rakesh falls flat in the musical format and the experiment of two parallel tracks which he did brilliantly in “Rang De Basanti” fails in “Mirziya”….I think “Mirziya” is Rakesh Omprakash Mehra’s weakest film till date…

Sad to see that so much of talent going waste in a average movie… I will go with Two and a Half Star…

Movie Rating: (2.5 / 5)