Rules - Pyar ka Superhit Formula (2003)
Cast: Milind Soman, Meera Vasudhevan, Tanuja
Director: Parvati Balgopalan
Music Director: Sandesh Shandilya
Synopsis: low budget, "no banner" production has a certain freshness and vitality
Reviewed by: Faiz Khan

 

Rules continues the welcome trend of the smaller Bollywood film—modestly budgeted, built around fresh faces and largely free of the usual clichés that dominate mainstream Hindi cinema. It doesn't aspire to be anything grander than a light romantic comedy, but it carries itself with enough charm to make the journey worthwhile.

Radha (Meera Vasudevan) works for a fashion photographer and secretly nurses a longstanding crush on supermodel Vikram (Milind Soman). Unfortunately for her, Vikram already has a glamorous girlfriend, Maggie (Namrata Barua), an aspiring actress whose ambition is matched only by her obsession with becoming famous.

Vikram, meanwhile, dreams not of stardom but of opening his own restaurant.

Caught between these two worlds is poor Radha, who has been quietly in love with Vikram since the age of fourteen. She knows full well that, compared with the fashionable and effortlessly glamorous Maggie, she is simply an ordinary girl unlikely ever to attract a second glance.

Confiding in her grandmother (Tanuja), Radha receives five simple "rules" guaranteed to win the man of her dreams. Armed with these nuggets of grandmotherly wisdom, she proceeds to put theory into practice.

What follows is a succession of amusing situations as Radha struggles to follow her grandmother's advice, often behaving in ways completely at odds with her own personality. To her surprise, the strategy actually works and Vikram gradually falls for her.

Then conscience intervenes.

Unable to live with the deception, Radha confesses that much of her behaviour was simply the result of following her grandmother's rules. Vikram naturally feels manipulated, the romance collapses, and the film heads towards its inevitable reconciliation.

This is where Rules loses a little of its sparkle.

The decision to have Radha confess everything feels forced and dramatically unnecessary. Up until this point the film has breezed along with warmth and charm, but the final act settles into rather conventional territory and loses much of the freshness that had distinguished it. The ending feels convenient rather than earned.

Fortunately, the journey remains more enjoyable than the destination.

Director Parvati Balagopalan demonstrates a confident command of her material. One particularly effective device is the series of documentary-style interviews scattered throughout the film, in which people from different walks of life—a housewife, a mistress, a gay man and others—offer their own perspectives on love and relationships. These interludes blend naturally into the narrative and give the film a distinctive personality.

Stylistically, Balagopalan succeeds admirably. What ultimately lets her down is not the direction but the screenplay. The premise is delightfully simple, but there simply isn't quite enough story to sustain the running time. The first half promises more than the second is able to deliver.

Milind Soman, who also produced the film, gives a relaxed and appealing performance. His Vikram is refreshingly normal, more interested in building a life than chasing glamour or fame, a welcome change from Bollywood's usual larger-than-life heroes.

Meera Vasudevan is equally likeable. She brings an unaffected naturalness to Radha that makes the character instantly believable. There is nothing artificial about her performance. She feels like an ordinary young woman hopelessly in love rather than another perfectly styled Bollywood heroine.

The film's greatest asset, however, is Tanuja.

Always a wonderfully gifted actress, she finally receives a role worthy of her considerable comic talents. As Radha's mischievous grandmother she steals virtually every scene she appears in, delivering her advice with impeccable timing and effortless charm. For her performance alone, the film becomes a genuine pleasure.

The music serves its purpose well enough without ever becoming memorable. None of the songs linger once the film has ended, but neither do they interrupt its easy-going rhythm.

Overall, Rules is another encouraging sign that Bollywood was beginning to embrace smaller, character-driven stories alongside its larger spectacles. It may be slight, and its screenplay may run out of steam before the finish, but it remains an engaging, gently amusing and thoroughly pleasant way to spend a hundred minutes.