|
|
|
| Movie Name : |
Love You to Death |
| Director By : |
Rafeeq Ellias |
| Starring : |
Chandan Rory Snyal,Yuki Ellias,Suhasini Mulay,Nicolas Brown,Seeba Chadha, |
| Music : |
Ronit Chaterji |
| Lyrics : |
Abhro Banerjee,Yuki Ellias |
| Review Date : |
03 February 2012 |
| Reviewed By : |
Avijit Ghosh |
| Source : |
The Times Of India |
| Rating : |
2.5/5 |
|
Atul ( Chandan Roy Sanyal) wants to kill his wife and get hold of her real estate. But not everything goes as planned.
Opposites attract but not when they are Atul and Soniya (Yuki Ellias). He is a boorish businessman solely pleasured by money and suffering from 'missile failure' (as his sexologist tells him); she is easily impressionable -- more in love with her dog Baby than her hubby. But he desperately needs the real estate Soniya owns to expand his business. And when she refuses, his cold, cucumber-loving mama ( Suhasini Mulay) suggests, "How about a murder that looks like accident?" Atul gleefully agrees.
It is easy to see what the makers of Love You To Death are aiming at: a zany black comedy with undertones of seriousness. Unfortunately, the movie has the feel of a drawing room play that doesn't really work as a motion picture. LYTD is loaded with sly, witty dialogues that might have sounded great in conversations and on paper but doesn't translate into laughter on celluloid. Treating a dog's attention deficit disorder with holistic healing can be funny or an aging, obese male boogying to the Elvis Presley track, Teddy Bear, can raise chuckles. Not here. In LYTD, the laughs are too few and far between. This gap is the movie's major weakness.
The movie's last 20 minutes are its best. Using a live art installation as the setting for the climax and where dozens of revolvers - but only one has bullets -- circulate among the guests, makes for engrossing suspense.
This is an all-out father-daughter show. Yuki Ellias, daughter of director-cinematographer Rafeeq, plays the female lead; her name also shows up in the credits as co-writer and assistant director. Roy Sanyal, who grabbed attention as a junkie in Vishal Bhardwaj's Kaminey, settles into his role after a rather unsure beginning. But Mulay is even better as a video-game loving, murder-plotting mother-in-law.
LYTD is in Hinglish -- more English than Hindi -- and shifts uncomfortably from one language to another. The movie has an adult rating. Of course, the theme of a husband plotting to kill his wife is for grown-ups. But there's nothing adult about the treatment. So what happened to the new liberal Censors? |
