The Dirty Picture is a biopic on Silk Smitha, though the makers of the movie prefer to say that it is just a movie about an item girl in South Indian Film Industry circa 1980. And yet, they have the guts to name the title character, “Silk”, supposedly a take-off on her original name of Reshma.
Since it is a movie about a vamp, there is absolutely no dearth in the skin show from Vidya Balan. And boy has she given us a feast. And for someone who has generally shown more of histrionics on screen, she has been able to carry off this show quite well. But truth be told, her physique is better off not shown.
We don’t have to get much into the story details because it is quite straight-forward. Young girl comes to big city in search of movie chance, ends up becoming an item girl whose in-your-face sexuality becomes a rage, then realises that there is nobody to care for her and finally commits suicide. This is pretty much the story of the original Silk and in fact, many a starlet in the movie industry.
Coming to the good portions of the movie, the best part is easily the dialogues. The first half was filled with lines that packed quite a punch. There are enough double innuendos to keep everyone happy and there are even some straight lines that really hit you. One sample: When a reporter comes to report on Silk’s house, she welcomes him to her one-room shack while taking a bath in her bath-tub right in the middle of the room. She then asks the reporter, “Don’t you want to know about my house?” and he says “When the Devi is giving darshan, why should I write about the temple?” In another instance, she is told to act like she is making love and the Director asks her “Were you thinking about Suryakanth?” She replies, “Why should think of something when I have it!” These may not sound great and you can blame my translation for that. But when you hear it in Hindi and in the context of the movie, you will realise how superb those lines were.
The other good thing about the movie was definitely Vidya Balan’s acting. It is perfectly normal to say that all she did was flaunt a lot of skin, but the sheer brashness with which she carried herself will leave you impressed. And like I mentioned before, she is not one who has ever appeared as a sexy person and so this was clearly out of her zone in terms of the role she essayed. So, definitely, she needs to be given a lot of credit.
The other big names in the movie have also done a pretty good job. There was certainly no hamming on anyone’s part and the overall casting also appeared to be quite good.
I now come to my favourite part of a movie review, the bad stuff. While the screenplay was not as horrendous, like say in Ra.One, there were quite a lot of loose ends that should have been addressed. Let us start with a simple one – the lead character is named Reshma. Now, it may very well be a good name and quite common too, but can you tell me how many Reshmas you know, who come from a village in Tamil Nadu? And that too someone who was born in the 70s?
Moving on to more serious issues, the whole movie is quite vague in terms of timeline. There are vague references to it being the 80s, but a rags-to-riches-to-trenches story cannot simply be narrated without even a cursory title cue that says “a few years later”. At least, if the characters had all aged, I can assume that the Director expected the audience to be intelligent enough to understand that a few years have passed by. But not even one person is shown to have aged – the cinema hero not appearing old can be thought of as a part of his “image”, but what about the producer who discovers Silk? Can’t he at least get a bit of white hair?
I also couldn’t find any concrete evidence on why the lead character suddenly opted to become an item girl. We get to see her try out for a movie chance only once. Then she is offered money to spend some time with an old man in a movie hall. This spurs her on to approach the casting agent and immediately agrees to do an item song. It was not like she came to the big city to become a vamp and so, in the absence of clear ground-work that established her struggles to break into regular roles, her decision to take up dancing sounded quite hollow.
After her first official item song, which is incidentally with the biggest star of the times – Suryakanth – she is shown as having arrived. She goes to a movie hall to watch her movie and the theatre is empty at first. The usher in fact tells her that there would be a crowd soon. Then, just before her song appears, a whole lot of people enter the hall, enjoy the song and then leave the hall when the song is over. If this Suryakanth was indeed a big star, it is shocking to see the movie hall to be so empty at release time. And if the word had already spread about Silk, then interestingly, the “fans” who storm the movie hall somehow don’t realise that their fantasy-girl is sitting right there with them.
In the very next scene, she is seen gloating about her success to the big hero, who for some strange reason is happy that she’s become successful while his movie is clearly not. He even goes to the extent of recommending her to the Director who comes up to discuss his next movie with him. The Director claims to be not interested in sleaze and walks out of the room. Silk is waiting right outside and confronts him – confront in a flirtatious way and not an aggressive manner. Right there she makes a statement that movies sell only because of “entertainment, entertainment and entertainment” and that she, is entertainment! As a punch dialogue it is great, but in the context of her relative inexperience in the movie industry – it is ridiculous. Nobody in the industry, except perhaps those who have strong lineage in it, ever makes such egoistic statements after their first movie.
Another minor fact that has been overlooked is the fact that Stardust has always been only a Hindi movie magazine, whereas it is constantly shown in this movie for reference. Didn’t the movie makers know about Paesum Padam or Bommai? Then there is this character called “Rathna amma”, who appears to be her guardian in the city, but goes missing all of a sudden.
Silk’s relationship with Ramakanth, the brother of Suryakanth, is not clearly defined as well. Did she go after him as retaliation against Suryakanth? Or did she genuinely like him? Or in true movie fashion, did the latter happen as part of the former?
Things move quite slowly in the second half of the movie and slower in the second half of the second half. They could have definitely done away with the song featuring Himesh, especially because it featured him singing a true love song and in contradicting that mood, it had Silk gyrating sexily as ever!
There is also abundance of the Tamil stereotype that an average North Indian sees – every guy in the movie, especially those watching movies or those who are attendants or light boys, are all sporting viboothi! I mean, lot of us do wear it, but not all of us do. There was also this minor irritant in the form of the whole Kanth family appearing in Mallu traditional wear (white silk saree for crying out loud), while they were supposed to be Tamilians.
Yet, I liked the movie and haven’t been able to find that many fundamental glitches. Was it because of the very powerful first half? Or was it because I was able to sympathize with the lead character? Or is it a case of my social sensibilities trying to prove to the world, that this movie has something more than sleaze?
The Silk character says at one point in the movie, that everyone enjoys the dirty pleasure, never accepts it in public and yet, she is the one deemed dirty. Makes me wonder, if I really like the movie or if I am trying to over-compensate that statement?
