Imagine there’s no office to go to. Imagine there’s no family to feed. Imagine you get a second chance. Imagine living your dream. Yoo hoo! You may say I am a dreamer. But I am not the only one.
Director Abhishek Kapoor – a man who himself failed the first time round with Aryan, along with producers Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani – has imagined such a world. A world where ‘you’ comes before ‘them’ and ‘I’ comes before ‘us’. A world where you have to reach in to rock on.
Rock On! comes seven years after Dil Chahta Hai – the only possible Bolly benchmark in terms of impact on young urban mindscape – and in these last few years, the individual has taken over and Time magazine has declared “You” as the Person of the Year. In 2001, it was about: Dil chahta hai/ Hum na rahein kabhi yaaron ke bin. In 2008, it is about: Dil karta hai TV tower pe main chad jaoon/ Chilla chilla ke main yeh sabse keh doon/ Rock on…
Friends are fine but Aditya, Joe, Rob and KD have to first fight their personal demons. Aditya (Farhan) may be tracking infrastructure stocks but he must grab that mike again. Joe (Arjun) may be teaching guitar to the neighbourhood kids but he must play to the gallery again. Rob (Luke) may be sequencing the flute for Anu Malik but he must take the stage again. KD (Purab) may be helping his dad in his shop but he must hit the drums again. Together, Magik must rock… again.
In a seamless to-and-fro screenplay (Abhishek and Pubali Chaudhuri) we see the then and now of Magik separated by 10 years. Then the four were a happening rock band, coming so close to cutting an album. Now the four are going about their daily lives trying in vain to forget the long hair, the goatee and the guitar. Posed band pictures shot in an empty swimming pool maybe tucked away in some storeroom and the group jeep maybe hidden under some dusty tarpaulin but the music and lyrics in their blood makes their “compromised” lives impossible to live.
It is here that Rock On! dares to dream. There maybe a film-maker in me, a writer in you and a painter in him but we choose to sweep such aspirations under the carpet in the name of compromise. Kaun nahin karta, asks Aditya. He doesn’t and using the magical metaphor of music, Magik inspires us to make that choice.
Having come up with a good story, Abhishek turns it into a great film. There are moments so beautifully crafted that they look straight out of life. Like the scene in which Luke’s Rob goes back to their favourite Irani cafe and sits alone at a table, trying to turn the clock back. Or the scene in which Aditya discovers the new guitar wife Sakshi (Prachi) has left for him on the table. Or the scene in which Joe recalls those golden days with the strum of his guitar and then shuts out the Magik memories by simply closing the bedroom door to the balcony.
Rock On! couldn’t have been better cast. Purab Kohli gets thefunniest lines and makes most of them. Luke Kenny, seen 10 years after Bombay Boys, is refreshing in his approach to every scene. Arjun Rampal is a revelation. Putting the overdose of commercial Bollywood junk behind him, the beautiful man lets it rip and uses his physicality to full effect, both then and now.
Those sceptical of Farhan the actor, well, the man commands the screen. Thanks to that piercing gaze. Something that works as a perfect foil to the absolute warmth that is Prachi Desai. It’s such a delight to see two debutants, one an ace film director and the other the Balaji bahu, act out the best husband-wife squabble seen in a long time.
But the best performance comes from Shahana Goswami (seen in a cameo in Naseeruddin Shah’s Yun Hota Toh Kya Hota); as Arjun’s wife, she delivers a knockout performance of a woman trying to literally wash her hands off the past and get life back on track.
The men rocking from behind the scenes are Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy and Javed Akhtar, whose catchy anthemic score is the heart of the film. And for a 150-minute movie that ends with almost 20 minutes of non-stop music, the team almost does a Lagaan here. A film like Rock On! with all its stage shows must have been very difficult to edit but Deepa Bhatia’s (Taare Zameen Par) scissors work just right. British cinematographer Jason West makes the music and the melancholy come alive in equal measures.
