Parineeta - Movie Review
Published: February 23, 2011
Starring Vidya Balan, Saif Ali Khan, Sanjay Dutt
It's almost unfair to criticize a film for not being as good as the book—because they almost never are. It's simply the nature of adaptation from one medium to another—something has to be sacrificed in order to make it work. But what's sacrificed in the commercially palatable Parineeta—the 2005 film adaptation of the 1914 Bengali novella of the same name by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay—doesn't have to be. What's retained, which is a superb story, nearly makes up for what's lost in the characterizations.
The author's most famous work—and the one most often adapted for film—is Devdas. His romances are fraught with social complications—classic upstairs man/downstairs woman love stories—and his male characters are confounding and frustrating to say the least. They are not heroic, but compelling nonetheless because they are so very familiar. In Parineeta, that man is Shekhar, the spoiled son of a rich businessman, played in the film by Saif Ali Khan. With a dashing leading man like Khan, it was obviously too tempting to turn Shekhar into a traditional romantic hero. While Shekhar behaves deplorably in parts of the film, he's a much more likable guy than he is in the book, and he redeems himself by defying his father (who conveniently dies in the book so Shekhar doesn't have to defy him) and claiming his true love Lolita (played by Vidya Balan in her impressive debut) in a way that's supposed to be dramatic but comes off as silly.
Lolita would have been a more suitable name for Lalita, as she is called in the novella. In the book, she is 13 years old and Shekhar is 25 (the ages were not atypical of couples at the time it was written). In the film, she appears to be only a few years younger than Shekhar. Her extreme youth and innocence in the former dramatically heightens their power imbalance; and her greater maturity, fortitude, and honorability—despite her age—than Shekhar creates a striking contrast between the characters. In the film, it is her relationship with Girish—played by the middle-aged Sanjay Dutt—that seems a bit unseemly. In the book, Lalita is torn between the cruel Shekhar and the kind Girin (his name in the book) over conflicting obligations. In the film, Lolita wants the hot young guy, who represents a challenge, over the dull and doughy Girish—obligations be damned. In the book, the steadfast, upstanding Lalita is the true hero.
Parineeta is rated Worth Watching.
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