Parey hut Love : Pakistani cinema’s effort to replace Bollywood (spoilers alert!)

Tickets booked, popcorn and tea bought as I settled in my seat to watch the much talked about Pakistani commercial movie released on Eid ul Adha called “Paray hut love” directed by none other than Asim Raza of “Ho maan jahan” and ‘Behudd’ fame with an elaborated star cast.

The movie started with “Natasha ki shaadi”, a larger than life set of a Haveli where mehndi was being applied on Fareiha Altaf and the maids were carrying huge thaals of mithai. The ostentatious wedding of the rich and the famous with colorful designer wear and a well choreographed mehndi night where a famous actress must make a guest appearance; a prolific formula for any commercial movie, sets the picture perfect introduction of the film.

 The very next scene introduces the male protagonist of the film commonly called the hero Shahryar Munnawar surprisingly called Shahryaar in the movie too. A somewhat fresh comic scene by Hina Dilpazeer who plays the filmi over the top mom of the male protagonist, his not so rich and not so groomed friends, a typical formula to show the friends of the protagonist as less groomed, dumb and frivolous to not divert the limelight from the main leads. The mehndi night was taking the audience back into a colorful journey of bridal clothes by our local designers, a surprise entry by Meera and the predictable dance number by the ladies, pretty much like “Shakkar wada” in Asim’s last movie.

The story immediately takes a romantic turn with love at first sight between the two main leads Maya and Shahryaar who sneak out from the wedding madness to explore the city of lights on a Vespa. The Karachi shown by the director is probably the Karachi we all want and long for, but sadly it can only be seen in our dreams or on celluloid. Giving no clear location the hero and heroine easily travel between a farm house, to a party, to clicking selfies on the beach all in one night defying all laws of distance, time and the safety situation in the city.

The rest of the narrative of the film was weak with abrupt scenes taken from various Bollywood movies, which suppressed the actual story of the protagonist Shahryaar, who wanted to be an actor and had major daddy issues. His betrayal of love towards Maya (Saaniya ) and his effort to find a breaking role in TV all was lost somewhere in the costume drama. The Parsi wedding was a new angle that was added yet it failed to support the story as too many things were put in one plate.

While watching the movie I had two opinions, one that the pages of the script were missing as Shahryaar’s jumping in water before the interval had not connection to the story after the interval.  Second, the director was too busy localizing scenes from famous Bollywood movies that he forgot to pay any attention to the storyline.  Saaniya’s wedding in Kashmir reminded me of Rockstar by  Imtiaz Ali.

The entry of Mahira Khan in the last part of the film pretty much like Madhuri’s entry in Devdas was actually an attempt to fast forward the story towards the end. The  beautiful location of Turkey and the amazing clothes by our Pakistani designers were the actual highlight in the movie, though the backless cholis were a bit over board. The ending was inspired by Yashraj’s 2013 release ‘Shud desi romance’ where Shahryaar runs away on a white horse and somehow time travels and catches Maya in the middle of Bhousphouros River, followed by a rap cum item number for ending credits.

The absence of Indian films actually gave our local movie makers a way to make a Paki version of Bollywood films, to play safe as the movie goers are already conditioned to watch such content for years. Sadly revival of our cinema is only possible if our local movie makers work hard on the story line of the movie and then worry about adding glamour in the film. Some originality of content and a strong story line is a must if Pakistani cinema wishes to compete on international movie platforms.