Mujhse Fraandship Karoge

If I am not mistaken(which I often am) Mujhse Fraaandship Karoge is Bollywood’s first movie directly based on Facebook social networking interactions.  Starring four youngsters, set in a modern day fictional campus director Nupur Asthana manages to keep our attention on a much rehashed plot through a fast and fashionable story line.

Saqib Saleem and Saba Azad play the lead pair with  Nishant Dahiya, Tara D'Souzah who have strong supporting roles. It is a easy breezy campus flick if you are in mood for one. It is good to see old war horses like Yash Raj films moving with the times, promoting young directors and contemporary ideas.

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Bubblegum

Jamshedpur, Jharkhand is transforming into ‘the’ place for coming of age movies. Maybe lot of new crop of directors/writers grew up as offsprings of steel plant or ONGC employees which provided stable white & blue collar work in Northern India from seventies onward.

Bubblegum is teen coming of age story narrated in first person by a guy who is probably in his thirties looking back at a Facebook-less cellphone-less world. A time of sweet innocence, right? Wrong, FB, Twitter and texting might be new but teenage was a wicked time since time immemorial, even before language and written word started making matters worse. 

A housing society in Jamshedpur is the setting of this good-natured teen drama which has the fourteen year old Vedant(Delzad Hiravali) in lead vying for the attention of girl next door, Jenny(Apoorva Arora.) Two other significant characters are Ratan, Vedant’s arch enemy who has his eyes set on Jenny as well and Vedant’s deaf and mute brother – Vidur.

The life of teens back in that era has been vividly captured by the script and characters, so is the life in a housing society (apartment complex in urban India) of the eighties shown with its small but important nuances. The events of the story happen around the days leading up to Holi and the festival forms the thread that holds the story together.

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Plus Two

Plus Two is the newest addition to Malayalam's list of high school romances. Plus Two in India corresponds to junior and senior years at high school in the US. This period is often cited as the years when teenage emotions go haywire in the subcontinent, as rightfully documented in Malayalam movies like Notebook, Kshanakkathu and Venal Kinavukal. Yeah, we are late bloomers, goes well with our arranged marriage system.

Sheby Chavakkad – a first time director uses the niche access door of teen angst and romance to enter Malayalam filmdom. It must have worked as blessing to him and his producer as this kind of entry undeniably cuts production costs by not needing a super star. M&Ms are only in their fifties and it’ll be a few years before they can get past the late 20s characters they are doing right now and tackle more complex teen roles. Till then people < 20 still have a chance.


Even with all new faces, it is a watchable movie. Roshan Basheer and Shafna play the lead pair, with four sidekicks(Justin John, Vishnu Mohan, Deepak Murali, Sajin), all of them are actual teens which also must have saved a lot on wig and makeup costs. Just imagine the state of producer’s wallet if Jagdish was to play one of those roles. Salim Kumar, Maniyan Pillai Raju, Sona Nair, Sai Kumar, Geeta Vijayan and Suraj Venjarmood play supporting characters.

There is not much of story, dialogs are tolerable and I don’t remember the songs (could be me.) What I remember is Shafna walks too slow even when situation demands her to be P.T.Usha and acts timid and helpless enough as is required of Malayalam heroines. Roshan has telltale signs of a newcomer, but as they say – that too shall pass. But what in the world made them name him Prince? Was he MJ’s lost son while he did his secret sojourn in the 90s through Kerala? Michael, rest in peace, I will not blame this on you. Meanwhile if you come across +2, it is an easy watch, go for it (without many expectations.)

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