Sadly, Bhansali does great disservice to this character by making her a sindoor-obsessed woman who even touches Ram?s feet. Very passionate, clever enough to lead her clan, and equally loving, Leela is a very likeable character. Leela is a firebrand who kisses Ram on their first meeting and has her own persona. He is street-smart but has the innocence of a child, and always bats for peace. For one, the film cares deeply about its characters, and makes you care as well. The film has its faults but it scores in some crucial departments. Like the clan celebration that has an item number where the song talks about Ram-Leela?s love story, despite it being such a sensitive issue at the time!ĭialogue has some crackling lines, but it?s unbearable to listen to the characters repetitively speak in smart-alecky, rhyming sentences even in their most dire times. Their relationship is as grown-up as it is silly this dichotomy makes it more interesting at once.ĭirector Sanjay Leela Bhansali and co-writers Siddharth-Garima make some seriously glaring errors, that they reckon won?t matter. But it?s sweet to see the couple tease each other, make lustful jokes, and make no bones about their passion for each other. The love story starts off implausibly, and develops really fast. A woman?s swirling ghagra as she?s escaping an attack is also captured in a glorified manner.īut overall, Bhansali achieves his aim of filling up the audience with the beauty, forgetting that they might just get a bit overwhelmed. Even a person falling is captured in slow-mo so the hair is softly flying as the person hits the water with a gentle thud. There?s an effort to create an enchanted courtyard feel, but you get the feeling of a plastic tree and weird lighting. But the depth in the visual splendor is not omnipresent. And yes there?s visual splendor in every frame ? from the rich, saturated colours, to the aesthetic styling, digitally created peacocks, and gimmicks like a kitschy Ramleela procession. Sanjay Leela Bhansali loves visual excess, we all know that. The rest you can more or less predict (although there are some nice surprises in the second half).Īlso read: Naam Leela - Are sex, violence and vulgarity absent from epics?
They make-up, break-up, innocent lives are lost, and the talk of peace gets repetitive. He?s below her home that very night, and they have a mildly physical, playful meeting.Ī few such meetings later we are to accept that they are so deeply in love, the brutal enmity between their families just doesn?t matter.
Their connection looks like lust at first sight. Ram, a lout, thinks it?s a rollicking good idea to gatecrash the other clan?s Holi party (ditto Issaq). ?Bavaal? between the clans is routine and in this volatile milieu, Ram and Leela meet. The town is introduced from an outsider?s perspective who is overwhelmed seeing guns being sold openly at roadside stalls. So what do we have here? Ram (Ranveer) and Leela (Deepika) belong to warring clans in a small town in Gujarat. True, Romeo and Juliet is an exhilarating story, but it?s not new for our films where forbidden love between enemies has been done to death. It?s clear?Shakespeare cannot escape Bollywood. How many films will it take before we finally let go of Shakespeare?s Romeo and Juliet? After Ishaqzaade and Issaq, we see Bollywood churning out yet another adaptation.