Bollywood Cinema is given a fashion-forward makeover with Madhur Bhandarkar's answer to ‘The Devil Wears Prada' and ‘Zoolander', with the director yet again bringing us behind the life of ordinary society. His oeuvre involves leading strong-headed ladies into the fray, from the likes of Kareena Kapoor, Kirti Kulhari, Konkona Sen Sharma, and in this one, he single-handedly revived the fledgling career of one Priyanka Chopra Jonas.
Meghna Mathur (Priyanka Chopra-Jonas) is a small-town girl with dreams bigger than that her city could contain. Against the wishes of her parents, the native of Chandigarh ventures into the unknown, into the city of Mumbai, to chase her dreams of becoming a famous supermodel. She meets with a flamboyant agent, Rohit (Ashwin Mushran), who introduces her to the world of glitz, glamour, and (bad) make-up. Meghna slowly comes to terms with the business, while experiencing the grim underbelly that lies behind the bright lights of the seemingly picture-perfect fashion industry.
In this rag-to-riches tale, Meghna meets a handful of people who enter her life and entangle her into a cruel web of deceit, sex, and drugs. There is supermodel Shonali Gujral (Kangana Ranaut), another aspiring model, Janet (Mugdha Godse) and a head honcho tycoon, Abhijit Sarin (Arbaaz Khan) of Panache, a high-end brand, who takes her under his wings. Nothing is quite like what it seems, as innocent Meghna is slowly corrupted by the vices of fame.
Madhur Bhandarkar's works thread a very thin line between fact and fiction. He has a penchant to craft stories out of everyday life. As the popular adage goes, truth is stranger than fiction. And in this fictional account of a struggling fashion model, the dirty laundry of life on the runway spills out, aided by a searing screenplay by Niranjan Iyengar who punctuated strong characters with razor-edged dialogue. On the other hand, Mahesh Limaye's cinematography keeps up the guise of deceit as the girls stoically walk down his expertly shot runway and photoshoot scenes reminiscent of those from ‘Fashion TV'. Much of the film is peppered with such shots that not only show off the gorgeous Priyanka but also Limaye's natural camera angles and tight frame shots.
‘Fashion' has no room for subtleties. The picture runs for a gargantuan 157 minutes and pulls no punches in the inclusion of many audacious stereotypes. There is the tortured new face that gets physically abused by her beau, one that takes drugs to cope with the onset of her success and let's not even count the number of times we hear the term ‘darling'.
As it goes, ‘Fashion' has its flaws, especially with some sound issues (Strange dubbing and delivery of some lines) and poor pacing. And the story could have been thinned down substantially to exclude some awkward scenes that hold no value in the overall flow of the picture. However, Priyanka Chopra's multifaceted acting chops once again shine through in portraying Meghna's meteoric rise to the top and she is supported by a hardworking cast of talents like Mughda and Shonali, whom all depict women facing realities at the forefront of stardom. They all have similar lives but vastly polarizing outcomes that come together to tell an alarming narrative of the hidden side of fame.
As much as it is applauded for shifting the horizons of less represented cultures in Bollywood, the movie suffers from laughable plot choices and tired cliches that perpetuate into much of the LGBT characters. Some of its soundtrack and lighting choices were also on the slightly vapid side of things, adding to an aesthetic that has not aged quite well almost two decades later. But still, it is a refreshing inclusion in a conservative Indian film industry that is slowly evolving and starting to feature more risqué themes.
Bhandarkar reasons that his films are ‘not judgemental but show what happens in our society, sometimes there could be a solution and sometimes there may be none. Life goes on.' It is his own charming versions of ‘docudramas' that put life behind the lens. And this one not only walks the walk but talks the talk.
