Will the trailer for Preity Zinta’s new film “Ishkq in Paris” do its job and get us into the cinema during the opening week? (If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look here.) More In Bollywood Journal When it first appeared online, my Twitter timeline seemed to sink in disappointment. Ms. Zinta’s character is confident, sassy and silly (you can tell because she has fun trying on hats.) There’s also a nod to typical Bollywood romances (meeting on a European train), and Paris looks lovely as usual.
But her characterization the whole film, really could have come from almost any point in her career. “Ishkq in Paris” looks true to rom-com form, but will it be a confident execution by a seasoned professional or just the same old same old from someone who has slipped slightly from the public’s attention? Sometimes a return to the familiar works well (Amitabh Bachchan in “Bbuddah Hoga Tera Baap”), but sometimes, even with beloved stars, it doesn’t (Madhuri Dixit in “Aaja Nachle”).
The high points of Ms. Zinta’s career fuel my fledgling desire to give this film a chance when it releases in October. We all know on a rational level that a film cannot accurately be judged by the previous work of its crew and cast, but my hope for “Ishkq in Paris” is also partly an emotional decision. This is the woman who in her debut film “Dil Se” (1998) holds her own against Shah Rukh Khan in adamant lover-boy mode and the dramatic but eerily quiet Manisha Koirala. With significantly less screen time than the other legs of the love triangle, she also creates a convincing counterpoint of open and light-hearted modernity in contrast to the lead heroine’s brooding. It’s quite an achievement to be memorable in a movie that, in addition to SRK and Ms. Koirala, also includes the earth-shattering “Chhaiya Chhaiya” and the midriff of Malaika Arora Khan. (Of course, looking good in wet fabric never hurt a girl either.
She has peppered her career with interesting choices like that one. In “Salaam Namaste” (2005), she is the more mature and more vulnerable half of a couple that moves in together, gets pregnant, breaks up and eventually reunites, all without being married. In “Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna” (2006), she is again the wiser, as well as infinitely more successful, partner in an unhappy marriage.
In the last few years, she’s made nothing but interesting choices, and they have steered her in fascinating directions but away from the general concept of Hindi film heroine. After playing a war widow in “Heroes” (2008), a Bengali actress taken under the wing of an aging Shakespearean actor (Amitabh Bachchan) in Rituparno Ghosh’s “The Last Lear” (2007), an abused immigrant wife in Deepa Mehta’s “Heaven on Earth” (2008), there have just been short appearances in “Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi” (2008) and “Main aur Mrs. Khanna” (2009).
I applaud her becoming a producer, something that several other actresses have tried: Hema Malini, Pooja Bhatt, Twinkle Khanna, Lara Dutta, Dia Mirza and, probably most successfully, Juhi Chawla. Putting one’s money where one’s pretty face and star persona are is a bigger gamble than simply starring in someone else’s film (just ask Shah Rukh Khan). In the case of Ms. Zinta, adding producer to her resumé is a very reasonable application of her apparent interest in business co-owning an Indian Premier League cricket team and taking a course at Harvard Business School to the industry she knows best. It also complements the tough side of her public persona, the side that sometimes challenges false accusations about her in the press and refuses to retract a statement against the Mumbai underworld in the trial of a film financier in 2003.
Only Ms. Zinta knows what she really wants, so whether “Ishkq in Paris” works as a “comeback” film is perhaps ultimately up to her to decide. It’s quite a year for comebacks for big-name actresses, with Karisma Kapoor in “Dangerous Ishq” and Sridevi in “English Vinglish.” None of them have occupied exactly the same slot in our imaginations, belonging somehow to different eras despite the slight overlap in the active years of their filmographies. Still, I can’t help but worry for “Ishkq in Paris,” slated to release the same day as “English Vinglish,” which, let’s be honest, has a more engaging trailer with more emotional depth on display.
