Bollywood Movie `Fashion' is interesting, without being particularly insightful....

Fashion

Priyanka Chopra, Kangana Ranaut, Mugdha Godse, Samir Soni, Arjun Bajwa, Arbaaz Khan, Kitu Gidwani, Harsh Chhaya, Raj Babbar

Director : Madhur Bhandarkar

‘Fashion', an ultra-close look at the fashion industry, is a mix of the strange and the familiar: that's what happens when you pick your film out from the headlines. It's Madhur Bhandarkar's forte, and with his latest, he's got the mix-- the glamour and the dark underbelly, the highs and the lows-- just right. Enough to titillate, not to alienate, making it very watchable.

Telling his story through a starry-eyed small-town beauty queen is a clever stroke – he makes it a strong hook for a million girls like Meghna Mathur ( Priyanka), all of whom want to head to Mumbai to become, as the character says, a supermodel. But again, like in Bhandarkar's others, the semblance of a plot is just an excuse to string together a series of scenes in which ‘People like Us’ think happen to ‘People like Them’—the director kow-tows to public perception, adding just the right amount of `masala' to whet appetites.

Models smoke, drink and sleep their way up. The only successful designers are gay. Coke is the ultimate accessory of the beautiful people, and that's not something that comes out of a bottle. But `Fashion' is a more sophisticated film than, say, `Page 3'—the director is no longer shocked at salaciousness and sleaze, and that matter-of-factness of the taking is what makes the film so seductive.

Little about his film is new or unknown, but Bhandarkar is not here to give us fresh takes. He wants to give us a bird's eye view, or in this case, a fly on the wall, of cat fights in the green room, bitter rivalries, behind-the-scenes chaos in frenetic fashion shows. Leggy models sashaying on the ramp are daily fodder for our TV screens. Despite the disclaimer, Gitanjali Nagpal's ravaged face is clearly the inspiration for Kangana's self-destructive character.

The wardrobe malfunction –the bustier that fell off, exposing the model's torso, which ran endlessly on 24 hour news channels-- is in the movie too. And the blond designer who will sit only in the front row, boyfriend in tow, can only be, okay, we're not telling.

Cleavage is king here, so should we say queen, given the profusion of gay people in this movie, all of whom are `oh-so-creative'. Followed by a procession of never-ending legs, tight midriffs and toned butts....

Bhandarkar adds a few individual quirks to his stereotypes, so that a limp-wristed designer becomes Samir Soni, a hard-headed celebrity handler becomes Kitu Gidwani, a millionaire playboy preying upon ambitious young girls becomes Arbaaz Khan.

The super-attractive trio that holds it together is topped by Priyanka, with the criminally short-changed Kangana and the vivacious first-timer Mugdha, kept firmly below.

Priyanka's heavyweight presence makes sure that much of the focus in on her, and she's good, but bland. Who knows what the movie would have been like if Kangana's character had been given more play—I would take the edgy Kangana any day over the surface smart but ultimately prissy Priyanka.

It could also have done with being shorter. Like its characters, it gets played out in long loops. `Fashion' is interesting, without being particularly insightful....