Movie Review - Life In Metro

Mass Meter - ***
Class Meter - ***

Life In a Metro - Okay so we all have been living life in a metro and daily something or the other keeps on happening in ours as well as peoples life around us . Some people actually live it while others only hear about it....

Dir / Writer - Anurag Basu weaves an interesting tale , intertwining the characters and the stories with the city as the backdrop .
Mumbai city and its few montages have been beautifully captured by the cameraman...

Now to the characters of the movie, not necessarily in the order of appearance -
Dharmendra - yes you got it right, playing a US return guy back to the love he had once left due to the choice he had once made !
Nafisa Ali - A graceful lady staying in Old Age House, while her children are in US of A.
Shilpa Shetty - A Bored Housewife / Mother with nothing right happening in her life for no actual fault of hers (May be Big Brother is the culprit) :-))
Kay Kay Menon - The Philandering Chauvinist Husband working for a call centre at a good post and misusing his clout at work . If he strays, its okay and expects forgiveness , but vice versa for him is unimaginable !!
Kangana - Call Centre Employee with suicidal tendencies (residual role of Gangster, I presume albeit with straight hair and specs this time ), having an amorous relationship with her married boss.
Sharman Joshi - Ambitious Call Centre Employee , who uses his apartment keys as the key to his climb up the success ladder. He lends his apartment keys so that important people in his office can use it as a mating ground . Has a sincere crush on Kangana little realising that she is RUN OUT :-)
Shiny Ahuja - A Struggling Actor , leading an ordinary life and witnessing love blossom and suddenly stemmed in the bud !
Irrfan Khan - Unmarried Guy, searching for the right life partner . Adds amazing realism to the character he plays, mannerisms , attitude et al.
Konkona Sen Sharma - 30 and still a virgin, sister to Shilpa Shetty , wants to search for that elusive Perfect Partner, but being extremely cautious in her overall approach, another great performance .
Music director Pritam with his band - Sighted atop terraces, signals, cross roads belting out lilting music and stringing the story together . This was one nice way of introducing music to the movie compared to showing protagonists singing the songs....

Any Story which has multi characters is always a challenge for the director, to hold the individual stories together and weave ONE STORY out of it. This is where Anurag Basu scores as a director in handling the movie deftly. Anurag Basu's , previous movies were more of DVD rip offs of hollywood . In this he seems to have grown as a director (since i was unable to pin the sources of his inspiration :-)

Need to ask him what is his fixation for scenes depicting couples making out (read coital bliss) in a balcony or terrace, with red silky blanket and bodies in state of undress !! We have been infliced with similar scenes earlier in Bhatt Production - MURDER , GANGSTER !

Also there is a scene wherein Konkana happens to walk in a bedroom un-announced only to see her lover and boss making out, similar to the scene from Page 3 !

The Dharmendra - Nafisa track is kind of heart warming and it is through these characters, he presents a subtle story of missed opportunity in Life and an abrupt end .
The Irrfan-Konkona track is very real except for the predictable filmy end to their story, but amazing performance by both the stalwarts who eat hungrily into their roles .
Sharman Joshi - Kangana love track actually takes a positive turn towards the climax .
Kay Kay - Kangana track is that of Lust over Love , your guess is good as mine as to what wins !
Shiney - Shilpa track is the type of love story which touches the heart, but alas it was a could have been track (Just as in life! )!
Kay Kay - Shilpa track as husband and wife leading a failed marriage , for not known faults of the wife .

Real Life in Metro is so much more than just bed hopping and couples just searching for excuses to lead amorous life . I did have serious reservations on depiction of call centre environment as a HUB for just Libido Release . I know many in the audience would actually consider this as the whole truth !!

Life imitates Art and Cinema does influence people in some way . This movie will certainly erode or influence the already strained moral values of the society .

To each one his own, I dont want to be part of the Moral Police Brigade :-)

There would be many who would be scandalized while watching this movie , some would identify with similar characters little less exaggerated around them ,

....while the sensible of the lot would just consider this as CINEMA !