Leela (2002)

What a waste of my time!!!

Very disappointed :(

Best movie ever!

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

*** This comment contains spoilers. *** LEELA (2002) is a modern day (India) Indian-in-America movie. LEELA attempts to have a realistic plot played out in a realistic manner. The film seeks to have common real-life dialog. The film tries to have the highest level of competent visual direction. LEELA tries to be great in every way. Sadly, this good intentioned movie pretty much fails across the board.As a modern drama, LEELA is not horrible, but it is also no where near great either. LEELA rates above a student film, but below a Hollywood level production. LEELA is missing dry, sober, real-life dialog at moments when it needs it most. Maybe the script is fine at these moments, but the delivery is just not realistic. No raw emotion.The condom-walk-into-the-room segment was the weakest scene among many. There were no great slice of life scenes, in my opinion.

I do not know anything about Somnath Sen, the director of the film. If this is indeed his first film, I congratulate him for pulling together a good cast and some fine production quality that lifts up the film.However, the script is nothing more than a reworking of "40 carats" and/or "Summer of '42". If the film is aimed at the Indian or South Asian community in Asia, the film will draw some attention. This is because the line up of the commercially accepted Indian movie actors--Dimple Kapadia, Deepti Naval and Vinod Khanna--will pull the crowds out of curiosity to see them act in an English movie. Compared to an average Indian film, the camerawork, editing, and music of this US film are all used with considerable finesse. Sen's work stands out for these factors not the screenplay, the performances or the story. Ms Kapadia and Ms Naval prop up the film as they are both beautiful and evidently quite talented. I wish they could act in films of some top-notch European director!

There have been quite a few films in the last couple of years that have tried to breakup certain stereotypes ad cliches: 1) The opinion South Asian immigrants have about whites. 2) The opinion South Asian immigrants have about their peers who are born and brought up in the west. 3) The opinion born-in-the-west desis have about South Asian immigrants.Films like American Desi, Bend It Like Beckham, Bollywood/Hollywood have all succeeded to different degrees in breaking these stereotypes and striking a new balance in terms of awareness and acceptance. Leela is another film with similar aspirations and succeeds almost completely in what it sets out to achieve.Leela is a dramatic film that not only attempts to further demolish these stereotypes but it also gives its characters unique identities, identitites that go through a process of change and understanding as the film unfolds.There are a lot of things that impress you about Leela. Starting with the screenplay. It has been written very tightly as in never to slacken the pace of the film or loosen the grip it has on its characters. The dialogue is very intelligent and each character is developed very uniquely. The plot is essentially about a student-teacher affair and how it affects the two, but their subplots and their relationships with other people in their lives give the characters a lot of depth and empathy.Leela has been blessed with a good soundtrack from Jagjit Singh and Gulzar and also the production values and technical credits have done extremely well. The ensemble cast of Leela which includes Dimple Kapadia, Amol Mhatre, Deepti Naval, Vinod Khanna and Gulshan Grover among others do a terrific job with performances.Somnath Sen is a newcomer I believe (at least I am not aware of any previous work by him). But as a writer and director he does an extremely mature and comprehensive job of dealing with the merging sensibilities of two worlds. At the end of the day, Leela is good storytelling and a film about interesting people. People like you and me. 9/10.

One's been seeing a crass of movies made on the Indians settled abroad and how do they relate to their environment vis-a-vis their origins. Some of the movies have been downrightly funny (Bend it Like Beckham)to make any serious comment , some have been very good.. like East is East.The feeling one got after coming out of seeing Leela was that why did the director keep it so short at 97 mins.. they were so many openings ( for lack of a better word) which the director could have explored. For eg: the relationship between the son Krishna and father Jai could have been taken up, one was also not very sure on why Jai and Chaitali broke up and Jai seems to be having a good relationship with Jennifer.Having said all this, the movie is a must see, it has sensitively treated the issue of a teacher falling for her student.Also makes one think about relationships which are kind of surviving in India , breakup under a more liberal and accepting environment.Dimple Kapadia is ravishing as usual and its nice to see Deepti Naval back on screen after a while . I have always felt that she could offer more , and just needed a good director to get it all out. The kid Krishna also comes up with a good performance. The movie soundtrack is superb especially the last ghazal which has the Krishna doing a little jugalbandi with Vinod Khanna.