Movie Review - Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai by Suhel Johar

Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai Is a Poor Show.

 

Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai is story of Alia Patrick (Manjari Fadnis) and her journey which starts in Udaipur. Spread across several decades and three cities. The film begins with Alia getting felicitated at the White House for her book, A Little Heaven In Me. But before the ceremony could begin, she decides to rush to Udaipur, for the last rites of her confidante and former maid, Laxmi (Supriya Pathak).

 

From then on we witness a series of flash-backs, summarizing the highlights in her life. Born in a traditional Catholic family, she faces sexism early on from her parents for being a girl-child. In college, she falls in love with Alex (Himansh Kohli) and thinks it will last forever. However, her parents marry her off to a Rajasthani Prince Vikram Pratap Singh (Ashutosh Rana) for money. The prince is a violent psychopath with a history of ill-treating women in his family. When Prince Vikram forces her to abort her unborn daughter, she escapes the haveli with the help of a Laxmi, and flees to Mumbai. Once in Mumbai she starts her journey as a writer and eventually moves to New York. After migrating to the US she gets another chance at love in the form of NRI philanthropist Aditya Kapoor (Arbaaz Khan) whom she goes on to marry.
Unprofessionally crafted and lacking flair in terms of the script and dialogues (by Amreetaa Roy, who incidentally is director Keshhav Panneriy’s wife), the film falters at the concept level. Unarguably it is the writing and direction which are flawed. The film does boast of a lavish scale mounting with decent production values.
 

The film is edited and directed by Keshhav Panneriy, whose first feature film as a director, What Happened Then... !!!, starring Mayuri Kango and Tom Alter, released way back in 2002. He has four documentary shorts to his credits as well. Being a documentary maker it is quite stupid of Keshhav in throwing logic to the winds. Imagine limousines with different number plates on the front and back, snowfall in Rajasthan, a scribe from a regular Hindi glossy makes it to Manhattan Times and turns into a war correspondent in Iraq. Yes you get to see all that and more.

 

Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai is a women-centric film with an overly simplistic approach at dealing with serious issues that concern women even though the film ends with a note on the statistics of female resilience in India. The rest of the film doesn't even attempt to make a strong case in its favour. For most part, this movie is all talk, like a TV panel debate which offer you discussion without a conclusion. Essentially Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai is nothing more than a shoddily made formula film that marches on a convoluted, verbose plot, filled with plot-holes and poor characterisation. Sloppy dubbing and poor editing (Keshhav Panneriy) make the film a pain to watch.

 

The film is an out and out Manjari Fadnis's show but with barely any script to support her, it's no surprise that she does a dismal job. Arbaaz Khan is utterly wasted while Ashutosh Rana seems to be completely underused. Prem Chopra, used for comic relief as the purist Urdu editor who helps Alia, adds nothing to the film. It is sad to watch Rati Agnihotri being wasted in a one scene role. The only one trying to render some dignity to the story is Supriya Pathak.

On the whole, Jeena Isi Ka Naam Hai is a painful film to watch.