Mirzya

An aesthetically appealing, visually exquisite yet substantially vapid and narratively dissuading, Mirzya is a movie based on a Punjabi folk tale Mirza-Sahiba, juggling between two time frames.

The director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra presents in front of the audience, the story about two lovers, with love so deeply rooted and seared into their hearts that despite years of separation as a result of certain circumstances, nothing could let their eternal love for each fade away. Lovers since childhood, their love caused the boy Monish to commit a heinous crime as a result of which he was put behind bars. A consequent separation for years caused the two to fall apart from each other, only resulting in the girl planning to get married with a Rajput prince (Anuj Choudhry) unless once she realizes that the stable boy at the prince’s kingdom was none other than Monish himself. Reminiscing their love, the two could no longer stay away and eventually eloped for all the forces were against them.

This tragic saga, with palatial sets, beautifully colourful costumes, but lagging way behind at the core of the film leaves the audience suffering at the end of 2 hours 10 minutes. It lacks the true essence, the emotion of love that was primarily what was expected to be shown throughout.

There are scenes which are cut and expected by the intelligence of the audience to be implied by themselves. The editing goes vague after a certain point while the direction has numerous loopholes and is full of potholes. There isn’t a clear correlation between the two eras or the time frames. The armoured men and their characters of the older time frame remain unknown and the entire era is projected through expressions, with absolutely no dialogues. The parallel story belonged to an unknown, unrelatable and alien culture, puzzling the audience at the end of it all.

The legendary passionate love story of Mirza was neither directed, nor projected throughout by the two lovers. It was a shear mockery of the eternal love story of Mirza. The protagonists were largely expressionless and one tone. Harshvardhan Kapoor and Saiyami Kher may have the potential, but it definitely remained blurred and underperformed in the film. Harshvardhan Kapoor was absolutely expressionless and suited less in a heroic stance.  

The father of the female protagonist, British actor Art Malik, has overacted in numerous scenes, which leaves you quite puzzled and amused. The actress Saiyami Kher has quite a presence and charm on the screen. In toto, the movie is a major faux pas and considering how least occupied was the theatre, it speaks volume of how the movie has been lagging in almost all the stratas.

It, more often than not, seemed as if a major chunk of focus and attention was given to the song sequences. Well, more than the movie itself! The lyrics by Gulzar and tunes given by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy are average while movie is nothing more than being below average.

I would give it 2 out of 5 stars.